Sammamish

[Bodofish]

Soapbox Warning
All good guys but trying to blame the devastation of any run on a website/forum is just silly. Why not focus the blame on those that deserve it, WDFW. They are first and foremost the managers of our wild stocks. Lets not mince words, they have failed. In talking with many of the bios (off the record), they agree, they are ignored by management. Most of the Cutthroat Research is done out of pocket after hours, basically unfunded. WDFW Management has had too many failures like removing hatcheries to increase the stocks, the numbers just don't add up unless you are talking dollars in the budget. Then there's the NOF. They've single handedly ruined the salmon fishing in Puget Sound. One gill net in a river does more damage than all the sport fishermen together. The State needs to grow a set and stand up to the tribes like it does to Uncle Fed. Subsistence fishing is catching fish for personal and religious use, not for sale. Leaving a derelict net should be met with stiff fines and or imprisonment. Currently, I'm sure you would be hard pressed to find any identification on any nets in the river, that in itself is illegal. To that end the tribes can not manage their own. They are tribes and as such rife with nepotism, they are all related to each other (another problem in itself). Is a Tribal elder able to hand down and impartial judgement on a son, daughter or cousin?
I witnessed the same thing in CA, the Bay Area, almost 30 years ago, all salmon stocks crashed. The attitude from here was to ignore it as it will never happen. We finally caught up. Can we recover? Only time will tell, one thing is certain. It won't if every one of leaves it to the other guy to do something. Complaining about secret spots and internet ruination is not the answer, register, vote and make your voice heard.

If you are concerned about a run, C&R and use best handling practices, don't kill the fish.

[Bodofish]

And just to add. Habitat, habitat, habitat, habitat.......

[Bodofish]

I've had 50 years of fishing Sammamish. While growing up we routinely caught 5 to 10 pound Searuns and as the population increased the numbers slowly dropped. We still had big fish coming through and around 2008 - 10 the salmon / steelhead fishing took a hard dive and the guides turned their attention to the Searun Cutts. They camped in front of the Cedar and Issaquah Creek trolling plug cut herring. Two boats a day, six packs of squids catching up to 5 fish each. It didn't take long before the large breading fish were cleaned out. Now you only see 14 to 16 inch fish. If they're left alone or responsible C&R practices used, we may get some larger fish back in the system. It doesn't take a State Bio to see how the run has been damaged.
The other fish at risk in Sammamish are the Kokes. They were on the brink of extinction before some major habitat reconstruction (Reoccurring theme.) occurred on Issy Creek. Sorry to say they too suffer from people trying to get that big Searun. They bite on the same things used on the Cutts. Anyone trolling under 3mph is a magnet for the Kokes. Most people hook the little buggers and never know it then ***** about dragging a little shaker around.
My other beef is 5 fish limits on non stocked populations. One fish a day to the cooler, if that.

[Bodofish]

Not sure about the double post, maybe a mod can delete? Tom, Mike, Aaron?

[Bodofish]

My other beef is 5 fish limits on non stocked populations. One fish a day to the cooler, if that.

Couldn't agree more Bodo!

I know it doesn't take a bio to tell everyone what's going on here, but I was challenged to contact them and am still waiting for a response.

I've made lots of calls and usually they call right back. I hope you aren't calling Oly. The local office is in Mill Creek. They'll often drop an email addy to you and you should get some response from that. If they don't answer right away, squeaky wheel. =)

[Bodofish]

Honestly though I could care less what the bio has to say. Just because it's legal to keep these fish doesn't make it right. Anybody participating in these fisheries should be knowledgeable on the watershed and ecosystems associated with it.

Personally I think Sammamish brings in a fair amount of revenue for the area, therefore the community doesn't really bat an eye at the amount of pressure it has been receiving.

BUT I have noticed since posting this thread there have been far less reports posted about the lake. Maybe people are trying to "protect" their secret now.

I couldn't agree more except, the locals would just as soon stop the boat traffic from the boat launch. The parking lot is rarely filled with fishermen, it's "water sports enthusiast's" that fill the lot most of the year. The State Park is the only open launch on the lake.
Yes posters could be misguidedly not posting their trips but to protect a secret, that notion sailed when I was a kid....

[Bodofish]

If you want an interesting read Google 'What Happened to the Bull Trout in Lake Chelan'. The research covers topics including over fishing, introduced species carrying diseases, and mixed stocks of cutthroat being introduced with native cutthroat.

SPOILER ALERT:

All of the above topics contributed to Bull Trout becoming extinct.

Over fishing happened both on the lake and river, though there was an absolute ton of pressure fishing near the spawning grounds.

Kokanee and sockeye of mixed stocks were introduced 80~ish years ago. They brought diseases along with them that this unique, isolated population of Bull Trout had not seen before and many, many fish became sick and died

AND FINALLY the last point:
Bull Trout eat cutthroat. Crazy right?? 100 years ago there was a cutthroat hatchery started on rainbow creek to raise fish to stock the alpine lakes in the area. After a few years of taking NATIVE cutts out of the river the population was on the verge of going extinct. So now Bulls don't really even have a food source.
Which led the state to "enhance" the native cutthroat population with mixed stocks of westslope cutthroat and even Yellowstone cutts. So now even those nice healthy cutts you see on the lake aren't even native. Some ARE wild though.

Just some food for thought. Not directly related to Sammamish, but relevant nonetheless.

What's crazy is there have been hatcheries around that long and the lakes on that side of the State were getting non-native fish stocked up through the 60's and there was little to no thought about species extinction or habitat.