This is why WDFW’s controversial new no-boat fishing regulation on the Olympic Peninsula will be a damaging bust that threatens other rivers and will not recover wild winter steelhead.
It’s a sad story of incompetence, lies, lack of transparency, old data, short-sightedness, and a WDFW that consistently refuses to work openly with the sport-fishing community.
That the latest boat/bait bans will fail to stop the decline of Olympic Peninsula winter-run steelhead is a mathematical certainty, unenforceable, ignores the main problem, is based on secular lobbying, has no scientific justification, is counter to the Boldt 50-50 decision, ignores the popular vote and…
WDFW Region 6 Fish Manager James Losee explained the formula to TRN that WDFW used to justify the boat/bait ban. It’s a formula that guides on the peninsula sharply disagreed with. That the ban plans were kept secret from WDFW commissioners until the last minute is questionable transparency, at best.
WDFW’s formula, according to Losee, “used Hoh creel data to estimate the number of fish caught per hour via boat vs. shore. We know that shore anglers catch approximately 25% of the number of wild steelhead per hour compared to the catch rate of boat anglers.
“We know that boat anglers are often the most experienced and that the “boat” group contains the majority of guides so we assume that these anglers will be more effective fishing from shore than the current sample of shore anglers. That said, a conservative estimate of savings associated with this rule change is 50%.
“When combined with bait restrictions and early closures in some areas,” Losee believes, “50% is likely a conservative estimate and is highly likely to improve success at meeting management objectives, especially when combined when reciprocal cuts to the tribal fisheries that have taken place.”
Guides and boat fishermen disagree.
Former steelhead guide, WDFW enforcement officer and long-time steelhead advocate and activist Jim Tuggle says, “Let’s start with Catch & Release mortality. If it’s about five percent, as WDFW biologists say, then how does the math work to achieve a 50% increase in wild steelhead survival, which WDFW says is its goal?
“For example if 1,000 fish are now caught and released the mortality would be 50 wild steelhead. However, the mortality rate for tribal gillnetting is 100%, which is not being taken into consideration. If WDFW reduces sport-angling encounters to 500 fish at a C&R rate of five percent that equates to only 25 wild fish saved! How many more would be saved if WDFW held the tribes, with 100% net mortality, to abide by the 50% share allocated by the Boldt decision?”
Tuggle agrees, the numbers will differ from river to river but he believes that five percent mortality on C&R is actual scientific biology not an arbitrary number negotiated through politics. “If they (WDFW) really want to conserve wild steelhead, they need to take a hard look at the 100% mortality rate of tribal netting,” he argues, and accept input options from long-time Olympic Peninsula steelhead fishermen, including the very knowledgeable guides association. A long-time leader of that guide association agrees.
In about 2002 Trout Unlimited developed a scientific paper that demonstrated a need then for wild steelhead release. That recommendation wasn’t put together by a bunch of hay shakers either. It was developed by retired WDFW fish biologists, and included documented graphs that showed a downward trend in wild fish survival. The WDFW Commissions’ response was not to stop wild steelhead harvest but to eventually adopt a kill limit of one wild fish.
In Tuggle’s experience, “WDFW hasn’t done their job with steelhead for many years despite outcries to change their actions. WDFW has failed or refused to implement a Supreme Court mandate. If both of those were followed we’d be better off than we are, by a long shot.”
Steelhead guides and members of the WDFW steelhead advisory committee have long asked the agency to look at the tribal catch and negotiate to hold the tribal 100% catch-and-kill to the harvests share defined by the Boldt decision, and sport-fishing C&R mortalities at 5%.
If the state did their job we wouldn’t have these weakened steelhead runs. Three or four years ago, WDFW formed a Northwest Peninsula steelhead advisory committee. Meetings were held in Poulsbo. The preponderance of the suggestions made by the members was for the state to stand up to the tribes that were killing significantly more than the Boldt-allowed 50% in nets, and to eliminate wild steelhead from the sport-catch on Peninsula rivers. WDFW ignored both.
Immediate Impacts
Immediate effects of the latest no boat fishing rule on the Olympic Peninsula?
* Crowded gravel bars on rivers with limited bars on good fishing runs.
* COVID-19 super-spreader congestion that conflict with the premise of last spring’s mandatory statewide fishing closure.
* Private property conflicts.
* Shift of fishing pressure to rivers with significant bank access –very limited on Peninsula rivers.
* Shift in boat fishing pressure to rivers where boat fishing is legal.
* Increase in displaced Washington boat fishermen relocating to Oregon rivers, creating congestion, conflicts and unanticipated harvests levels.
* More boat and bank fishing pressure on rivers with generous bank access or where boat-fishing is still allowed. WDFW has no plans to increase hatchery fish on those rivers to accommodate added fishing pressure.
* Boat congestion will be epic on the Cowlitz, Lewis, Kalama.
* Elimination of steelhead opportunity for anglers with disabilities, unable to walk on rough rocks, get in and out of boats at bank areas or wheelchair brushy fishermen trails.
* Likelihood of multiple lawsuits against WDFW through the Americans With Disabilities Act.
* Tremendous off-season revenue hit for already struggling Olympic Peninsula businesses.
* Closures of OP businesses.
* User group conflicts. What’s a fly fisherman’s reaction going to be when half-a-dozen boatloads of conventional gear anglers beach on his/her gravel bar and start casting Spin-n-Glos and running plugs.
* WDFW enforcement frustrations, unable to enforce the boat-fishing ban in most sections of OP rivers.
* Another drop in general support for WDFW from sport fishermen.
* License sales will continue to skitter, lopping off chunks of WDFW revenue.
* Tribal overharvesting of wild winter steelhead will continue unabated.
* State legislators are likely to be brought into the conflict and may take action on the state level with long-range impacts for WDFW leadership.
* Mortality of catch-and-release wild fish will increase because of handling injuries inherent in bank landings, compared to in-water releases with knotless nets in boats.
And the ugly bottom lines — WDFW will not realize its stated goal of increasing wild steelhead survival, and wild winter steelhead returns will continue to nose-dive in one of the greatest winter-steelhead regions on earth.
Another ugly bottom-line is pointed out by Tuggle, author of Fish Cop, contributor to THE REEL NEWS and long-time sport-fishing advocate.
“It’s blasphemous, I know but consider that we have strong hatchery steelhead returns to most hatcheries with a steelhead program,” Tuggle points out, while “The wild fish in most rivers are continuing to crash! Are the hatchery fish better adapted than the wild fish which are failing? Evolution, survival of the fittest, etc.”
Guides Volunteered Options
Bob Kratzer, Angler’s Guide Service in Forks and a perennial workhorse for improving OP steelheading has even more pointed criticisms of WDFW.
“The reality is that this decision was made way too fast without enough input or really good thinking that would achieve what they (WDFW) wanted. It was ramrodded through—a decision that will impact thousands of anglers, resulting in millions of dollar lost and they didn’t even tell the commissioners or legislators about it.
“To me, it’s not a very smart decision to make a rule of this magnitude and not contact commissioners or legislators.”
Kratzer points out that the catch data WDFW used to justify the boat-fishing ban was left over from the early 1990s and even then was found to be inconclusively flawed. WDFW would not share the data with Kratzer’s group.
“Conservation is very important to all of us,” Kratzer pointed out, but added, “the severity of these new rules eliminates 80 to 85 percent of the fishermen from the fishery. WDFW also has an obligation to provide a fair and equal opportunity to sportsmen, all of us, not just bank fishermen.”
The Olympic Peninsula Guides Association put together an option that would have closed the upriver spawning areas for two months but WDFW ignored that package, and is allowing bank fishing in the spawning areas, relying instead on the boat-fishing/bait ban to reduce wild steelhead mortality by 50%.
WDFW Ignored Options
“We gave them a very solid proposal,” Kratzer said, and “What they decided on doesn’t get us close to where we need to be for good steelhead returns. We asked them, “What is the number of fish we need to get down to make you comfortable. We got no answer from WDFW. They basically ignored everything we had to say.
“I feel very confident that if they sat down with an open mind and said this is where we’re at, and asked, what can we do, we would come up with a real conservation plan.”
Kratzer believes, that “We could have made some really good rules here that would have kept fishing open, achieved the conservation goals, and kept businesses going, but they (WDFW) wouldn’t even listen to us.”
Another steelhead guide, Marc Bush, Twisted Waters Guide Service, is just as blunt.
“What I think is that WDFW is failing to realize the true impact of the decision. People with disabilities, the young and the elderly, and the inexperienced will find it nearly impossible to have reasonable access to the rivers. I do a lot of work with organizations such as Youth Outdoors Unlimited and The North American Association of Blind Sportsmen (NAABS).
“The Cowlitz is going to look like bumper cars at the carnival, but with much more serious consequences. In times when people are already stressed with the impacts of COVID-19, a questionable economy and many other stressors, overcrowding on the Cowlitz is going to be what might start the tea kettle whistling.
“How will this affect my business? What I am doing is asking my clients to consider other fishing options. The perch fishing is what I’m hoping people are going to gravitate to, but weekend mornings at Blue Creek are going to be ridiculous, and I will do anything I can to avoid that.
“This being said, are they considering lowering the limit for retention of steelhead on the Cowlitz? They didn’t last year, so I really doubt that this is even a consideration. They need to bring back the early winter hatchery run on the Cowlitz,” to meet the added fishing pressure, Bush believes.
Bottom line, I think the decision was made in haste. Better options could have been pursued. Conservation goals could have been met using other methods.
“When is the department going to look at viable recovery techniques? When are they going to start looking for broodstock program volunteers? The go-to is to blame Oceanic conditions, and frankly, I see this as a cop out. It’s reactive, not proactive. We can do little to affect Oceanic Conditions. We can improve habitat, form legitimate broodstock programs, reduce predation, and increase HATCHERY PRODUCTION to take some of the pressure off of these wild stocks.”
So far, all of us, Kratzer, Olympic Peninsula Guides Association, Bush—we’ve all been ignored by WDFW. So much for Director Susewind’s pledge last year for agency transparency and cooperation with sport fishermen.
Is This Sensible?
I have to ask, does any of this make sense on any level?
Last spring WDFW closed the entire state to sport-fishing out of fear that it would crowd popular bank and dock fishing areas and congestion would spread COVID-19.
A few months later, in December, this same agency escalated bank fishing congestion by making it illegal to fish out of a boat on Olympic Peninsula steelhead rivers. Intentional or just plain stupid, WDFW boat-fish ban force boat and bank steelheaders to share bank fishing hot spots, crowding shoulder-to-shoulder at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
What???
I have to ask Director Kelley Susewind, considering COVID-19, are the crowds you feared were dangerous in April not now dangerous in January? Which is it, Director? Is your agency trying to protect sport fishermen from the Pandemic. And if so why are you making laws that will actually produce congestion at bank accesses, endanger sport fishermen and ignore the Pandemic?
Your excuse is that winter steelhead numbers are failing and your boat –fishing ban will reduce the sport catch by 50%. Your decision is based on old data, old equipment and old attitudes. In my experience boat fishermen are not 50% more successful than bank fishermen, and a steelhead released—from a knotless landing net in the water—at the edge of a boat is less likely to be injured than a steelhead dragged, flopping up the rocks onto the bank.
Management Not Bans
And we all know that if WDFW really wants to ‘conserve’ steelhead, you do it with management, not a hard to enforce ban on boat fishing. You do it by adjusting the number of days we can fish. You shorten the season, either at the end when the big natives are coming in or by cutting days out of the fishing week, like you do for crabs and Puget Sound salmon.
Just like Kratzer and the other Olympic Peninsula steelhead guides agreed to do.
You asked how the public felt about your proposed boat fishing ban. The question was, of course, over-run with cheering bank fishermen, and anti-harvest advocates who applaud a ban on boat fishing—since they don’t boat. You accepted that as broad public sentiment. The goal, however, wasn’t to get a bunch of cheerleaders to applaud a bad idea, or appease steelheaders and wild fish conservancy lobbyist, but was to conserve dwindling steelhead stocks.
Another fall-out will be trespass problems. On a lot of OP steelhead rivers, most notably the Chehalis, Wynoochee, and Satsop the river banks that you want boat fishermen to step out on to fish are privately owned. Sure, there’s public access to the high-water mark, but one thing I’ve learned over the years is that exactly where that high water mark is depends on how tolerant the landowner is. There will be confrontations for sure.
Not to mention that such a rule will drive a wedge even further between steelheading factions.
Bank fishermen, especially quality time fly rodders will not be happy sharing their limited access with boaters who stop and cast into “our water”, and boaters are already unhappy with the bank fishermen who applauded the ban on boat fishing.
Is WDFW Dividing Sports
Cynics might argue that WDFW deliberately set up the boat-bank conflict to purposely divide the sport-fishing community. A community that in recent months has unified to challenge WDFW’s resurrection of Columbia River gillnetting, for abandoning joint management with Oregon, for mishandling North of Falcon salmon setting seasons, refusing to negotiate with public monitoring, lack of decision-making transparency, agreeing to decimate winter-steelhead opportunities on Puget Sound Rivers, killing the Puget Sound blackmouth season, shutting down Big C salmon fishing prematurely, halfheartedly negotiating with tribes for the 50/50 split and more. Much more…
Director, please prove me wrong. Provide contemporary data to show that boat fishermen kill 50% more steelhead than bank fishermen. I’d love to see it.
And while you’re at it, let’s see some real steelhead and salmon management, based on real facts and conservation issues.
(See this month’s Columbia River Region column for specific rivers and details.)