Northwest Fishing Reports

I don't know how many of you on this board are familiar with the issue, but if you are an angler concerned with the health and the future of our rivers and fish runs, it is definitely worth discussing.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/o ... atlas.html

Realistically there are no more pure wild salmon and steelhead strains left in the Elwha. With the such a little area of the lower river available to spawning fish, there is little reason to doubt that hatchery raised fish have interbred with the wild fish over the past many decades. Any fish that runs up to the headwaters of the system and spawns successfully will make fine "native" offspring.

G-Man wrote:Realistically there are no more pure wild salmon and steelhead strains left in the Elwha

Sure there are. In addition to the five species of salmon, searun cutthroat, and winter and summer steelhead returning to the lover 5 miles, there's a healthy native population of O. Mykiss (rainbows and post-dam residualized steelhead) between and above the dams, that even supports a fishery. Given some time, the river could re-establish its steelhead run from the genetic base above the dams.

It would be a shame to just waste this (essentially free) stronghold of native rainbow/steelhead and replace it with the same old Chambers Creek htachery stock drones raised in a massive meat factory hatchery (paid for by our taxes).

Taking out the Elwha River dams is already a huge step in the right direction. Why don't we just leave mother Nature alone for a while and watch it recover on its own? We can start a hatchery at any time if natural rehabilitation fails. But in this case, we only got one shot at nature fixing our screw ups.

You totally missed my point. How are you going to stop fish that are not in the river, at this time, from interbreeding with the fish in the upper reaches of the system? Also, I do believe that the Klallam tribe's hatchery program for the steelhead is a broodstock program. They use fish that returned to the system, not those from another system, like many other State run hatcheries. I think they are doing this right, a lot of thought, from many different sources, has already gone into the process.

Check out this article, it may make you feel a bit better about what is going to happen: http://nwifc.org/2009/06/major-successe ... k-program/

i also agree with G-man,

Will certainly be interesting to watch over time.

G-Man, I still don't think we're on the same page, sorry.
I do agree the steelhead broodstock program is a great tool as a temporary gene bank IF used as such. The problem is that recovery plan is ALSO implementing the use of stocks from other systems (chambers creek hatchery fish) when the native stocks (particularly steelhead) are IN the river already!

"An aggregate winter and summer steelhead population, influenced by past out-of-basin origin hatchery steelhead introductions, currently occupies the Elwha River below Elwha Dam. The early returning portion (December through March) of the winter steelhead population is currently supported by LEKT hatchery production, with an annual release target of 120,000 smolts...The hatchery stock has a significantly earlier run timing than the later, natural origin portion of the winter run, and has been found to be genetically similar to the Chambers Creek stock. Production of the existing hatchery-origin population of winter steelhead will be maintained at the LEKT hatchery"

When the talk of the dams coming down started, I originally thought that we would have the opportunity to watch a natural recovery process (think Mt. Saint Helens). But of course we humans in the name of present-day (outdated) fishery management techniques, have to over-complicate things, and spend millions in pumping out bajillions of chambers creek fish that, time after time, have shown NO positive effects in the recovery of wild steelhead. Kinda goes against the original goal and priority of recovering the native Elwha stocks, doesn't it?

I'm no expert, just a concerned angler, but as I see it, the Elwha is already going down the road of becoming another failed Puget Sound salmon and steelhead watershed, just another cash cow for the local tribe that nets it. Sounds kind of pessemistic I know, when it seemed so promising not so long ago.

Here's a link to the Elwha recovery plan for those of you that are interested. It looks good, but read the restoration approaches of each fish carefully:
http://www.nps.gov/olym/naturescience/l ... eID=224242

I would love to hear your thoughts.

Honestly, no matter if they run a hatchery or let the fish come back on their own, i don't see this working out any better unless the tribes give up netting at least til the runs recover. More than anything i think this is more of an opportunity to see where they stand (whether they truly believe the fish are part of their hertiage or a swimming bankroll). That'll be the difference between a true success or just a prettier version of the puyallup river. That's my .02

As spokey9 mentioned, regardless of what they do, the fish are going to interbreed. What the tribe, the State and the Feds are doing is just speeding up the process. This way, natural selection has a larger number of fish from which to pick to create new "native" Elwha steelhead and salmon runs. Only time will tell what the retention rules will be for Elwha system once the dams come down. One can only hope that it will be a selective fishery for both the tribe and sport fishermen.

I'm not totally sold on the genetics thing as a hatchinfg egg from a steelhead or an RBT can decide to turn and got to see growing large or stay at home and be fairly small... well as environmental conditions dictate. So what is it that makes the fish big? I say location and food.