Published February 2014 THE REEL NEWS
Columbia River Region Column
By Terry W. Sheely

Wild Steelhead Gene Banks Protested


“WDFW’s Biggest Blunder 
”


 


--------plus--------


 


More Springer Optimism, East
Side Anglers Lose


Plea for More Salmon, Sturgeon Closures Argued, Buoy 10
Area Closure Debated, Will Vacuum Chute
Replace


Fish Ladders
and….


 


Anglers Howl At


Hatchery Losses


           
Is turning two prime Southwest Rivers into wild steelhead sanctuaries the
“biggest blunder WDFW has ever made? 
One guide thinks so and he has supporters.


Steelheaders are fighting back,
at last, unhappy with the state’s plan to sacrifice popular Southwest hatchery
  steelhead sport fisheries to boost WDFW wild steelhead recovery
ideas.


           
A public informational session on WDFW’s plan to shut down summer
steelhead hatchery plants in order to turn the North Fork Toutle and Green
rivers exclusively into wild fish gene banks brought out 100 plus anglers and
ran into some fiery opposition at a meeting in
Centralia.


           
Speaker after speaker lined up to condemn the plan, pointing out that
both rivers draw big numbers of recreational anglers and the loss of that
fishery to create a sanctuary for wild steelhead spawning would have economic
consequences.


           
Opponents outnumbered gene bank supporters made up primarily of wild-fish
advocates including the Native Fish Society.


           
Long-time Southwest guide Clancy Holt said WDFW is “making the biggest
blunder you’ve ever made,” in eliminating summer hatchery steelhead in the
Green. He claims that Green River hatchery fish stray into the lower Cowlitz and contribute heavily to that fishery as well as
the natal river.


Holt was one of several who
  recommended that the Coweeman  River be used as a wild steelhead gene
bank instead of the Green or Toutle because the Coweeman is mostly encased in
private posted property, short on public access and never heavily fished.



           
Recreational anglers won’t miss the Coweeman. They will mourn the Green
or North Fork. “Go to the Green River parking lot at 3 a.m.,” said Tim Deaver, “you
can’t get a parking spot.”


           
The Coweeman, in fact, was one of the rivers originally being considered
as a wild gene bank but was rejected in the final selection. Also considered was
the South Fork Toutle, but that idea triggered a huge angler
backlash.


           
Backing up their pro-hatchery arguments and
to replace the Green with the Coweeman as a gene bank opponents pointed out
that, WDFW reported in 2012 that anglers caught 1,432 steelhead on the Green
but only 113 on the Coweeman. Randy LeDuc of Centralia argued that WDFW has already invested
in a summer steelhead hatchery on the Green, but has no hatchery on the
Coweeman. Opponents square off against the state’s argument that the Green is
superior to the Coweeman as a hatchery bank by underscoring that WDFW in fact
has bolstered the Green River sport fishery by
stocking upwards of 25,000 smolts a year, compared to only 12,000 in the
Coweeman.


The arguments were not entirely
one-sided.


Wild
fish supporters argued the big picture: claiming that ending plants in the North
Fork and Green would eliminate about 2 percent of the hatchery steelhead in the
Columbia River system. 
Wild steelhead recovery is more important than maintaining a viable sport
fishery on hatchery fish, they argued. Jason Small representing the Native Fish
Society, says he believes the need to preserve wild fish may not permit killing
steelhead for the table. “I have to look beyond my own
self-interest.”


           
The opposition spilled over to complaints about the Cowlitz collapse. Penny Lancaster of Toledo was quoted,
“the Cowlitz River used to be the number 1 steelhead producing fishery in the
state,” and Bill Thurston thundered—to rousing applause—“our opportunities are
shrinking and you guys aren’t doing a damn thing about it. You’re letting it
happen and you’re almost encouraging
it.”


           
I would argue Thurston’s generosity. There’s no “almost.” Recent moves by
WDFW to curtail hatchery steelhead are not only actually encouraging the demise
of sport steelheading, but are living up to WDFW Director Anderson’s warning
  several years ago that sport steelheading would be sacrificed if its necessary
  to recover wild steelhead on west slope rivers. The state is moving steadily in
  that direction, restricting, eliminating and reducing hatchery steelhead
  production, fishing seasons and sport-fishing opportunities on the I-5 corridor
  from Vancouver to Blaine.



           
They justify it by claiming that federal mandates are forcing the state
into wild steelhead recovery. But no where have I seen the feds demand that
sport fisheries be slashed. That’s the state’s idea of how to manage for wild
  steelhead—with friendly nudges from persuasive wild fish advocates.



The feds are
demanding wild steelhead recovery and supporting the state’s gene bank program..
National Marine Fisheries Service
has insisted that the state designate four Southwest rivers as wild steelhead
gene pools free of  hatchery
steelhead competition. The details are left up to the state


WDFW biologists and advisory groups
have been laying the groundwork for this situation since 2011 when the steelhead
management master plan was adopted.



           
The popular East Fork Lewis and Clark County’s Salmon Creek are also on the block as wild
steelhead gene banks and plans for those two streams were scheduled to get a
public airing January 31 in Vancouver, after my deadline. Stay tuned.



                       



East
Siders Lose


Springer Shift


To abuse the famous
Soup Nazi quote on Seinfeld, “No More
Salmon For You.”


That response
dashed, for now, a bid by Eastern Washington salmon fishers who are hoping to
convince Oregon and Washington fish managers
to allocate more spring chinook to upriver fisheries. 



Claiming they are salmon
shorted, the group asked the states to shift fifteen percent more of the
downriver salmon allocation to the Columbia Gorge and lower Snake River. The upriver increase would have been deducted
from lower river quotas.


But their push for more
springers ran aground when an influential seven-member advisory group failed to
pass the option along to WDFW for commission consideration, and Oregon gave it an outright reject.



The salmon advisors, instead,
left in place the status quo allocation of 75 percent for the sport fishery
below Bonneville Dam and 25 percent for upstream anglers.


The upriver representatives had
  asked for 60 percent for the lower Columbia and
  40 percent upstream of Bonneville Dam, claiming that such a shift would be a
  more equitable based on multiple factors including river miles, hatchery
  production and sales of Washington’s
Columbia River salmon-steelhead endorsement
license fee.


Lower river representatives
  countered the arguments claiming that the east side reps did not factor in the
  large Portland
  population and noted that ODFW is now also collecting a Big C endorsement
fee.


Eastern Washington sports fishermen have been complaining
without satisfaction to WDFW Director Phil Anderson about the 75-25 allocation.
Oregon said that before they would agree to
shift allocation percentages they would need to see a groundswell for change
from the advisors, followed by a request from the bi-state Columbia River Recreational Advisory Group, and then the
general public and ODFW staff.


“There needs to be a broad-based
  consensus and support for doing something different,’’ asserted ODFW’s Tony
  Nigro.


He pointed out that ODFW is
already facing budget cuts while being hit with the biggest overhaul of lower
Columbia River sport and commercial fishing
practices in decades as the Kitzhaber salmon plan is implemented in 2014-2017.



ODFW, he said, has little staff
  time to devote to new and contentious issues like re-allocation of the sport
  fishery.


On average, lower river anglers
  catch 77 percent of the sport spring chinook harvest, but as Nathan Grimm of
Pasco pointed out eastern Washington residents are working to rebuild salmon runs
through changes in Columbia Basin land-use and
habitat.


“You’re telling the (Eastern)
  people who are making sacrifices they can’t have benefits,’’ he retorted.



Ron Roler, WDFW Columbia River
  policy coordinator, has presented several scenarios that might be followed if a
  shift in allocation is eventually considered. He noted that under the new
Kitzhaber plan the sport share of Columbia spring chinook is being increased from
65 to 70 percent in 2014 through 2016, then to 80 percent in 2017. With
decreases in industrial net harvests allowing more fish to survive in the lower
river he says there is an expectation that more springers will make it into the
upper sections.


One of his scenarios hit a hot
  button.


It would give to mid-Columbia
and lower Snake anglers the entire chinook percentage being deducted from the
lower river industrial net fishery. That idea was immediately opposed by lower
Columbia sport
interests. Some snorted that east side anglers barely participated in the fight
to get more sport fish from commercial allocations, and didn’t deserve to enjoy
the rewards.


I suspect, sadly, that this is
just the opening salvo in what’s shaping up as a long fish fight between East
and West.



Sturgeon
Closures


Drawing Protests


           
Catch-and-eat sturgeon fishing is over for 2014 and maybe longer in the
Lower Columbia, Willamette and western Washington rivers, but the arguments aren’t
through.


           
Butch Smith, Ilwaco Charterboat Association rep and Larry Swanson, of
Columbia River Recreational Advisory Group testified before the Washington fish and wildlife commission that
  sturgeon numbers are climbing and urged WDFW and ODFW to revisit the
closures.


           
They claim that the established method for estimating sturgeon numbers in
the river is flawed and that a newer setline method is revealing that sturgeon
counts are much higher than originally feared.


           
The new method estimates the river’s population of catchables this year
at 131,700 fish, up from 114,200 last year and 72,700 in 2012. 



           
With that growth, Swanson said, a sport fishery “is certainly not going
to harm the resource.” Coastal Conservation Association reps don’t agree, and
want the states to stick by their guns.


           
The recent decline in sturgeon numbers is too large, says CCA, to allow a
quick re-opening.


           
Smith urged the states to re-open the Ilwaco area with a catch-and-eat
season similar to 2013 saying that a total river population of legals, sublegals
and oversizers is close to 800,000 and “warrants revisiting having some kind of
small retention.”


“Sport
fishing, Smith said,” is important to the coastal economy just as Boeing is
important to the Seattle economy. We are a conservation-minded
group, and we wouldn’t be here if we didn’t feel there’s some room for
harvest.’’


           
Oregon’s ODFW director and commissioners are
also being urged to revisit the closures.


           
After several consecutive years of dropping sturgeon numbers, Washington and Oregon
  closed sport and industrial retention starting this year below Bonneville Dam,
  in the lower Willamette River, Willapa Bay,
Grays Harbor and Puget Sound. While
catch-and-release is allowed to continue, the states hope the catch-and-eat
closure will allow the population to rebound.




Good News On
Wind, Drano, Klickitat   
If the guesstimators are right we’re looking at a much better year of
spring chinook fishing on the Klickitat and Wind rivers and Drano Lake.

             
Region 5 WDFW spokesman Joe Hymer has released predictions that estimate
springer runs in the three systems at 24,100—twice as high as last year’s actual
return of 12,700.
             
Wind River anglers are looking at 8,500
springers up from the 3,600  last
year; Drano is expecting 13,100 compared to last year’s 7,300 and the Klickitat
should expect 2,500 a small lurch from last year’s return of
1,800.
             
Those numbers, while optimistic, may change as more data is factored in
before fishing starts. 
Fish managers are forecasting a solid run of 227,000 springers to the
mouth of the Big C this year, compared to the dismal 123,100 that returned last
spring.

 Feds Take Another
 Look At Spill         
The feds are taking a second look at the ups and downs of spilling dam
water to boost anadromous fish survival.
 Emphasizing that it was not yet making a new decision Northwest Power and Conservation Council (NPCC) is
  sending out feelers for new information that will be fed into their   decisions on dam spill next year.


NPCC has asked the Independent
Scientific Advisory Board to review a proposal that would increase spring spills
over Snake and Columbia river dams for the next
10 years.


The advisory panel is made up of
  scientists appointed by the Council, NOAA Fisheries and the Columbia River
  Intertribal Fish Commission. WDFW and ODFW are not represented.


The increased spill
plan is being framed as an experiment to determine the affects of spill on
survival of juvenile salmon and steelhead migrating to the ocean. The Council
received the spill-experiment proposal from fish and wildlife agencies, tribes
and the state of Oregon.


The answers
will be factored into NPCC next rewrite of the spill management program.
Washington Council member Phil Rockefeller, chair of the Fish and Wildlife
Committee, said the intent of asking the scientists 
to review the proposed spill experiment “is to better inform the Council,
not to make a decision on the merits of the proposal.”


The panel will
review multiple questions about the effects of spill, good and bad, on salmon,
steelhead, other fish and wildlife in the river, and the river ecosystem. The
proposal recommends increasing spill to 125 percent of the total dissolved gas
level in the river below dam spillways during the spring for 10 years at dams on
the lower Snake and Columbia rivers, with a comprehensive
assessment of smolt-to-adult survival after five
  years.


Count on a
controversy no matter which way the science goes, but that the feds are at least
willing to evaluate the possibility of increased spill to boost anadromous smolt
survival is seen as a progressive step by many Big C salmon
supporters.



Buoy
10 Honey


Hole
May Close


           
One of the favorite hot honey holes in the Buoy 10 fishery is expected to
be closed to sport fishermen this year, to reduce the interception of hatchery
salmon headed to the commercial gillnets in Young’s
Bay.


           
The recreational closure was adopted by Oregon legislators who voted to
require a ban on sport fishing at the mouth of Young’s Bay as part of the
Kitzhaber salmon fishing reforms that go into effect this year. The reforms,
championed by sports fishermen, 
are intended to eliminate non-selective gillnets from the mainstem
Columbia by 2017 and shift the commercial harvest to selective kills in
hatchery-enhanced areas off the main channel. Young’s Bay is a critical
off-channel commercial netting area.


           
The industrial fleet asked for the sport closure to keep anglers from
catching bright fall hatchery chinook and coho at the mouth of the bay. The closure, as proposed, would end
recreational fishing from Aug. 1 to Sept. 15 between the Youngs
Bay bridge 
and the green buoy line from Warrenton Fiber upstream to the Astoria  Bridge.


There is a chance, however, that
those boundaries will be realigned by ODFW commissioners. ODFW’s Tony Nigro
notes that state legislators required a closure zone, but left it up to the
states to define boundaries. The Washington-Oregon Columbia River Recreational
Advisor Group is reviewing the question. One member of that group, Pat O’Grady
of Warrenton, has already come out in favor of the sport-closure. “Let’s give
some fish to the gillnetters here,” he told reporters, adding, “there are a lot
of areas for us sport
fishermen.”


But other sports group
representatives question that closure.



Randy Woolsey and Neil Branze say there
are safety and harvest issues to consider. The Green Buoy Line is near several
boat ramps that provide quick escapes for small boaters when the wind kicks up
at the notoriously treacherous river mouth. Robert Moxley of Dundee
said the closure will hit sport fishermen hard. He estimates that 30 to 40
percent of the Buoy 10 sport fishing effort is targeted on the green buoy line.
ODFW says its closer to 5 percent, but that figure
is considered low by most sports
fishermen.


Woolsey is arguing that one goal of the Columbia
River reforms is to boost local economies and that anglers targeting
early-returning brights along the green buoy line add heaps of cash to
Astoria-area hotels and restaurants.


“If we start closing down wholesale parts of what has
  been traditionally recreational fishing areas it just defeats the purpose of
  that plan,’’ Woolsey said.


The Oregon commissioners are scheduled to make a
decision at their February 7 meeting.



Ladders Out


Vacuums In?


           
Is whoosh the future of Big C fish
migrations


A promising new technology in
  smoothing and expanding anadromous fish migrations is taking place at Roza Dam
  on the Yakima River where tribal fish managers are working the bugs out of
  vacuum transport system that could eliminate barges, trucks, turbine mortality,
  dam spills dam removals and fish ladders.


All that plus a very real
  possibility of one day whooshing salmon and steelhead over ladderless dams—like
Grand Coulee.


The pilot project involves
moving anadromous fish with a vacuum system, similar to the old department store
  vacuum tubes that whisked our money to some mysterious place and came back with
  change.


An experimental Yakama Nation
  vacuum being tested at Roza Dam is successfully moving fish, unharmed, over
  vertical distances, and may provide fish passage over large dams built without
  fish passages, like Grand
Coulee.


The vacuum technology involves
  directing upriver bound adult anadromous salmon and steelhead and possibly
  downriver smolts, into a flexible sleeve with mild suction created by vacuum
  pressure that is capable of whisking salmon at speeds in excess of 10 mph for
  several hundred feet. The tribe has had success with a 40 foot tube at Roza and
  point out that a Norwegian vacuum has moved fish 230 feet.


The vacuum technology was
created by a Bellevue company, appropriately named Whooshh
Innovations, to move fruit. A salmon pilot program, however, is also showing
great promise for moving fish with no apparent physical injuries. A test coho
has reportedly made repeated trips through the Roza system without
harm.


The vacuum tube system involves
a generator that creates suction in a soft, flexible sleeve inside a protective
  plastic pipe. The wet sleeve seals around the fish, protecting it while the
  vacuum pulls it along the pipe. An examination by USGS scientists at the
  Columbia River Research Laboratory could not find any negative impacts on fish
  moved along significant horizontal and vertical distances.


Big picture-long term, this
  technology could eliminate most of the problems and costs associated with
  upstream-downstream migrations and survival and whoosh salmon and trout into
  historic spawning areas long cemented shut. If successful and cost efficient,
  vacuum transports could end the arguments for and against dam removals and
  spills, increase migration survival of smolts and adults and send counts of
  returning spawners soaring.


           
That’s a lot of potential up side.



Anglers Lose Two



Marine Fisheries


Marine sanctuaries
are picking up steam, marching north and it is sports fishermen who are being
steamrolled.


           
The feel good-do nothing preservationists programs that are banning
recreational fishing opportunities in large swatches of the ocean have gone into
effect in two more areas on the Oregon Coast, bringing the total to four-with a
fifth area scheduled to be closed in 2016.


           
The two new marine preserves that closed to sports and industrials on
Jan. 1 are at Cascade Head just north of Lincoln City
and Cape 
Perpetua south of
Yachats. All fishing is prohibited inside the
reserves. Slightly less-restrictive rules
apply in adjoining "marine protected areas" that allow trolling for salmon,
shore fishing and crabbing. The protected areas adjoin north and south of the
closed reserves. The two closed areas join
similar sportfishing bans at Redfish Rocks south of Port Orford and Otter
Rock between Newport and Depoe Bay.


           
In 2016 fishing restrictions will also be imposed on a fifth marine area
at Cape
Falcon north of
Manzanita.


           
ODFW’s stated goal is to rebuild rockfish and bottomfish populations that
have been decimated by industrial overharvesting.


However, similar marine reserves
in California
  have served only to close a great deal of the coastline to sport fishermen and
  recovery results are dubious. The commercials dug this pit, why are sports
  fishermen being forced to refill it.


           
Most private and many government biologists agree that if sport fishing
restrictions are designed to meet conservation goals, and when coupled with bans
on commercial overkills ODFW could rebuild these fisheries without complete
  angling closures. The insidious encroachment of Marine Reserves started in
California, is established in Oregon
  and headed into Washington.


           
Make no mistake, these are feel good-accomplish nothing restrictions
conceived by preservationists whose goal is to eliminate sport fishing. Numerous
national sport-fishing and conservation enhancement groups have come out solidly
against these reserves.



Anti-Trappers


Change Tactics


           
Oregonians, it seems, are not as easy to fool as Washington’s misty-eyed urbanites, forcing an
anti-trapping group to abandon a plan to put an initiative on the statewide 2014
ballot that would kill trapping in the Beaver
State.


A spokesman for the Bend-based
  antis, Trap Free Oregon, says it ran into opposition from private property
owners who strongly opposed restrictions on private lands. To dodge that
opposition the group says they’ll refocus their campaign on banning traps only
from public lands with an initiative on the 2016 ballot.


           
In neighboring Washington a well-funded and tear-jerking
advertising campaign succeeded in having private trapping banned several years
ago. The result has been a flood of beaver, muskrat and nutria damage claims,
(including washed away houses), fish habitat problems, culvert blockages,
flooding, destruction of private trees and landscaping, an all-time population
boom in raccoons and coyotes with corresponding decreases in deer fawns and game
and songbird survivals and that’s just a sampling of all that’s gone wrong since
traps were banned.


           
Rather you agree or not trapping is a legitimate wildlife management
tool, and wildlife management should be left up to wildlife managers, not
controlled by fuzzy-minded bleeding hearts and preservationists groups with
funding for an onslaught of largely fictitious sentimental advertising images.



           
In Washington the antis were quick, powerful and
persuasive. WDFW didn’t help their cause or wildlife’s and the few outdoor
leaders with facts but no advertising funds or campaign savvy were over-run by a
television advertising blitz of fictitious tear-jerking images.



           
Oregonians can expect the same, but hopefully they’ll see through the
fairy tales and send the preservationists packing.



Hold
That


Puff
Please


           
You might end up keeping that celebratory steelhead cigar and
contemplative campfire pipe in your pocket this
year.


           
Oregon
Parks and Recreation is
considering a rule to ban smoking in common areas of state campgrounds, on
trails, picnic areas and waysides. 
A private group, Surfrider Foundation wants the ban extended to
beaches.


           
The proposed ban would not apply to personal campsites or the ocean beach
and smoking would be allowed in cars and campers. Fines would be between $60 and
  $110.


Parks commissioners say they’ll
put the issue on the agenda for February’s meeting.




Shoulda Celebrated
@


Battleground
Lake


           
If you didn’t celebrate the end of ’13 with a trout trip to Battleground Lake you should
have.


           
WDFW plumped the popular pond with buckets for whopper trout. Here’s how
the catch went on the 29th.


Anglers caught 41 trout
averaging 5 pounds each and 35 rainbows weighing 10 pounds each. That’s a better
average on both ends than steelheading in the Cowlitz  River
so far this year.