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[redside1]

So, 18 fish in the Wally Hall derby, 2 in the Dart and Tackle derby, 1 in the Boxing day derby, 2 wild fish tubed for broodstock ... are we concerned yet?

if you look around coast wide you will see that there is a serious ocean survival issue going on right now.
Many places in Washington state all the way up to Haida Gwaii are dismal for steelhead fishing.
I know a number of guys that cut their trip to Haida Gwaii short because of dismal fishing on decent water.
Pretty much all of Puget sound has been closed to all retention of hatchery steelhead so they can get enough brood stock back for the hatcheries. Many returns are down 60%-80%
Vancouver island has been dismal so far with places like the Stamp/Somass having a very poor return of winter steelhead.
Talk to guys that go and all the local streams like the Coquitlam, Allouette, etc have been poor overall.
 It looks like in river drought conditions in 2015-2016 and warm ocean water (I am sure there are other factors) has caused a lack of survival for this years and most likely next years steelhead returns.

Might be time to sell a bit of steelhead tackle off while it still has some value.

[wildmanyeah]

if you look around coast wide you will see that there is a serious ocean survival issue going on right now.
Many places in Washington state all the way up to Haida Gwaii are dismal for steelhead fishing.
I know a number of guys that cut their trip to Haida Gwaii short because of dismal fishing on decent water.
Pretty much all of Puget sound has been closed to all retention of hatchery steelhead so they can get enough brood stock back for the hatcheries. Many returns are down 60%-80%
Vancouver island has been dismal so far with places like the Stamp/Somass having a very poor return of winter steelhead.
Talk to guys that go and all the local streams like the Coquitlam, Allouette, etc have been poor overall.
 It looks like in river drought conditions in 2015-2016 and warm ocean water (I am sure there are other factors) has caused a lack of survival for this years and most likely next years steelhead returns.

Might be time to sell a bit of steelhead tackle off while it still has some value.

Dave is well versed in steelheads offshore distribution as well as them being surface migrators making them especially susceptible to warm ocean predators.  As well as climate change and the effects of the blob and how it disrupted the north pacific ecosystem.

What hes asking is does it make sense to bag on them as business as usual given their poor return. We shut down sockeye and chum fisheries because of ocean survival and poor returns but we do nothing for steelhead.

I think a decent compromise in low return years would be to use hatchery fish as brood. Then if ocean survivals improve go back and take wild fish.  As well has providing some relief in the portion of the river that Avid Angler suggested.

im just having a hard time accepting the solution is to do nothing.

[avid angler]

Dave last time I talked to the brood guys I know (yesterday) they had tubed 2 pairs. Also that’s a poor example of fish numbers when there’s only a couple guys on the permit who actually regularly catch fish. December was epically poor this year. But Looking at my logs for the last 3 years. This January and last January I had about the same number of hookups. Two years ago was slightly poorer and three years ago was slightly better. Not saying things are great but honestly with how bad the rest of the coast is doing I’m reasonably impressed with how the vedder is faring in comparison so far. There’s honestly only a half dozen guys who have the angling skill as well as the time fished to honestly say how the fish numbers really are.

[CohoJake]

The hatchery escapement reports from WDFW provide a pretty good indication of ocean survival since they release a known and relatively fixed number of steelhead smolt that don't spend much time in the river at all, so in-river conditions really shouldn't be a factor.  Numbers locally - for the Nooksack river, 2018 had over 300 fish as of mid-January, 2019 had 42 fish, and 2020 has just 14 fish so far.  These hatchery stock are early-winter fish, so most of them have already been spawned in the hatchery by now. 

The subtle variations between the species of Oncorhynchus surprise me.  Both steelhead and Chinook in the Chilliwack system and all the local rivers I know of are primarily 4-year fish, both go far out into the pacific to feed, and we saw fantastic returns of Chinook this year but steelhead are dismal.  What is the difference in their food sources and migration patterns in the ocean that would cause this? 

[avid angler]

Chinook are deep water bait fish feeders whereas steelhead stay shallower

[wildmanyeah]

Fall whites also primarily stay in the strait of georgia.


The great chinook fishing may of been more a factor of in river conditions as well.  I don't think the hatchery got as much ESSR as they normally do.  Lower fraser Essr for chinook in 2018 was 13k in 2019 it was 3k.

[RalphH]

I believe it's important tackle shops continue to have competing steelhead derbies on the same rivers in years of  very low returns. After all it's part of our Westcoast angling heritage!

[please don't shoot me] 

[redside1]

I believe it's important tackle shops continue to have competing steelhead derbies on the same rivers in years of  very low returns. After all it's part of our Westcoast angling heritage!

[please don't shoot me] 

the Province has zero desire to have any hatchery fish spawn with wild fish so it's in everyones best interest to cull all the hatchery fish possible.
Tackle shops having derby's is a fun way to promote that.

[wildmanyeah]

How many people show up when the river or ocean is open to catch and release vs when it’s open for a kill fishery. Exponentially more people.

I get it steelhead have complicated live history’s and American hatcherys that have bread hatchery on hatchery have not had great success.

Is the solution to do nothing?

[redside1]

How many people show up when the river or ocean is open to catch and release vs when it’s open for a kill fishery. Exponentially more people.

I get it steelhead have complicated live history’s and American hatcherys that have bread hatchery on hatchery have not had great success.

Is the solution to do nothing?

any ideas on what to do?
Hatchery steelhead are not the solution. Try and name a place that they have rebuilt a poor return.
The only thing to do is habitat work and make ways to have less stress on the fish which wil no doubt in the end mean more closures on rivers.

[avid angler]

How many people show up when the river or ocean is open to catch and release vs when it’s open for a kill fishery. Exponentially more people.

I get it steelhead have complicated live history’s and American hatcherys that have bread hatchery on hatchery have not had great success.

Is the solution to do nothing?

That isn’t the the case with steelhead fisheries. Again if you actually fished for them you would know that. The solution is habitat work

[bkk]

any ideas on what to do?
Hatchery steelhead are not the solution. Try and name a place that they have rebuilt a poor return.
The only thing to do is habitat work and make ways to have less stress on the fish which wil no doubt in the end mean more closures on rivers.

Easy. The Cheakamus after the CN Rail Caustic Soda spill. Hatchery enhancement was done for two years and they filled in the gap of no fish for the major impacted years. It is now back to a wild system at low levels of abundance.

Habitat restoration only works  to a degree. You can improve the early life history stages but is extremely hard and expensive to create suitable habitat for presmolts and smolts. Do you see any likelihood of any agency constructing 100 logjams on the Vedder that would survive the large water events? Then you will also have problems with the Navigable Waters Act as the rafting industry generally isn't a big fan of log jams in rivers they work on. Most of these solutions sound good on paper but are very problematic in the real world. If it was easy it would have been done already. This is not even considering the money that would be needed. And this is only one river, what about the rest of them?

 If it was just a habitat issue then I will leave you with this to think about. The Keogh River on northern Vancouver Island is the Ministry of the Environments ( or whatever there called now) primary research river since the early 1980's. It is closed to steelhead fishing and has been for many, many years. It has had years of habitat work as well as stream fertilization and fish culture activities. The fish culture was discontinued years ago. If any stream should be benefiting from all of the habitat work as well as having any angler induced mortality eliminated it's the Keogh. So what's happening there? Last year was the worst return on record and previous years were not much better. That suggests to me that the big problem is in the ocean with low survivals. On streams that have juvenile downstream programs on them ( like the Cheakamus) the amount of steelhead smolts leaving each year is generally in the same range over a time line. That suggests that the stream is producing about the same amounts of smolts each year. What is different is ocean survival. And how do you fix that?

 I have no likely solutions on how to fix this problem. Maybe that is why there is more comments on a ice fishing thread than there is on a steelhead discussion. Sad. I used to live to fish steelhead and I'm finding it harder and harder to get ramped up to chase the last few fish. Evidently the Province feels the same way as they have shown zero interest in looking for solutions or money to at least try and help.
 Oh well, only 4 1/2 months until the ice comes off of the interior lakes.

[RalphH]

the Province has zero desire to have any hatchery fish spawn with wild fish so it's in everyones best interest to cull all the hatchery fish possible.
Tackle shops having derby's is a fun way to promote that.

the hatchery catch is the only hard metric on the extent of the problem.

[wildmanyeah]

That isn’t the the case with steelhead fisheries. Again if you actually fished for them you would know that. The solution is habitat work

are you saying the derby has no influence on the amount of people that show up to fish?  I find that hard to believe. Are you also saying that tubing a wild fish and then having a derby to kill off all of its offspring has no influence as well?  Are you saying the tackle shops posting pictures on social media of the river and hatchery caught dime bright specimens are having no influence? I agree that steelhead fishers are unique that they will show up on high numbers for C@R but I still think bonking a fish having a derby and posting all over social media increases angler effort.

I do find it curious tho that some of the systems that have hatcheries like the stamp and vedder on them are generally doing better than most streams in south BC. Is that because they started off with a huge run of steelhead or did the hatchery somehow help?  Did some of the hatchery offspring go and bread? did it boost abundance? Did it even out angling pressure on wild and hatchery fish in the system.

IDK but I do know one thing and I can see it on social media is the march fisheries below the crossing are going to become the new hot time to fish.

[avid angler]

are you saying the derby has no influence on the amount of people that show up to fish?  I find that hard to believe. Are you also saying that tubing a wild fish and then having a derby to kill off all of its offspring has no influence as well?  Are you saying the tackle shops posting pictures on social media of the river and hatchery caught dime bright specimens are having no influence? I agree that steelhead fishers are unique that they will show up on high numbers for C@R but I still think bonking a fish having a derby and posting all over social media increases angler effort.

I do find it curious tho that some of the systems that have hatcheries like the stamp and vedder on them are generally doing better than most streams in south BC. Is that because they started off with a huge run of steelhead or did the hatchery somehow help?  Did some of the hatchery offspring go and bread? did it boost abundance? Did it even out angling pressure on wild and hatchery fish in the system.

IDK but I do know one thing and I can see it on social media is the march fisheries below the crossing are going to become the new hot time to fish.

The Fred’s derby pictures and reports have a huge influence on pressure. People see fish got caught and they think they have a better chance at catching one because fishing is good. If they posted people’s wild fish pictures during times of good angling you would see the same pressure increase. I don’t think it’s about blood thirsty anglers wanting to make a kill but rather they think they might actually have a shot and hooking something

The stamp winter run is not doing well at all actually. They have had issues with smolt die offs, confusing summer and winter runs and breeding them together. They haven’t had a good winter run in a long time. On the Chilliwack I do think that more hatchery fish get through and spawn then the numbers of wild brood taken. Even more so pre 2012 when there was less a lot less pressure. And I’m sure they do produce offspring. Whether that has helped or hurt returning fish numbers is up for debate and there’s really no way to prove it. The vedder is doing much better then most other streams and i personally wouldn’t change much in the way things are done with the hatchery program. The system has seen the same amount or more of wild fish this January as the last several years.

The people panicking, making assumptions and kicking and screaming for an overhaul are all people who either don’t fish, or can’t catch them even when there is a lot fish around. All the usual guys who know how to fish have been out catching the same amount of fish as normal.

The biggest change I’ve noticed in the last 8ish years is there has been huge changes (for the worse) in the lower river as far as holding water goes. So for the guys who just stick to fishing pro cured prawns and burnt roe that never fish above Wilson road aren’t experiencing the same success as in the good ol days because the fish just aren’t stopping down there. Their lack of success is as much to blame on a lack of adapting to the changes in the fishery as it does with lower numbers of fish.