ODFW Hearing Today on Spring Chinook Allocations

garyk · 11-16-2001, 10:28 AM

A reminder that the hearing is today at ODFW Portland HQ, 2501 SW 1st Ave.

Spring chinook allocation is the last agenda item so they'll likely hear it sometime in the afternoon. Here's the agenda description:

Willamette/Columbia River Allocation Plan

Dept. staff will ask the COmmission to review the preliminary options for sport and commercial allocation of spring chinook.

David Johnson · 11-16-2001, 10:33 AM

I'm going to try and be there.

garyk · 11-16-2001, 10:43 AM

If you are there, thanks for doing so. If you're able to take some notes that can later be posted as an eye-witness account, that would be most appreciated to.

I note the agenda uses the word 'preliminary', so I guess today is not the final word, but it will still be important to see what is being proposed.

Point-of-Sale Clerk · 11-16-2001, 08:12 PM

I was there today and yes I took notes. Had to leave the commission meeting at 11:30 to get back home so I could go to work so I did not get to listen to the presentations regarding the Spring Chinook allocation. I did speak with many in the hall outside and sneaked a peek at the sign up sheet. NSIA had lots of people signed up to speak. I Ran all over the building gathering reconnaissance. Had to give one of the security guys following me the slip, maybe next time he will look under the stall in the ladies room…sucker…(he he)
I tried to impress on all I spoke to that the sport fishing allocation should be high as our impact on wild fish is less than 10 % and made no sense that commercial be allowed to harvest at all. I was not popular with many in the hall, go figure…

*** Clerk

Fishbulb · 11-17-2001, 06:30 AM

Less than 10%. What C & R planet do you live on? This may be yours but it isn't the average.

The commercial guys are going to beat the sporties this spring on long term mortality rates. This thread sounds a lot like what I heard at the public meeting on Tuesday in Vancouver. That hand on heart presentation that the NSIA paid lobbiest and his paid robot lacky gave made me almost loose my cookies. See the money? The sport industry has shifted from recreational to a paid sport and has thus become commercial itself. I only heard two average (non-sport-money-affiliated) sporties speak up. Thank God the commisions really knows what is going on. Thank God the people of our states still recognize that both methods are useful and deserve to be out there. Thank God we all live in America and our rights sometimes outways dollar signs.

By the way ***, the sporty money has missed an incredibly important component to this mew spring commercial fishery. Have you found it yet?

Straydog · 11-17-2001, 06:36 AM

Your right Fishbulb, *** is high with his 10% mortality from sportfishing, 7 is the number that studies have concluded.

If you believe the commercial and sport incidental take numbers are about equal you don't deserve the credibilty shown by even discussing this with you.

Straydog · 11-17-2001, 06:38 AM

PS."long term mortality?"

Nice that's a cute catch phrase, please explain "short term mortality".

Fishbulb · 11-17-2001, 04:31 PM

Hooking mortality for fresh spring chinook taken from the mouth to the dam is higher than 10%. These fish are fresh out of the ocean and are at an incredibly vunerable juncture. Their bodies are stressed from undergoing osmoregulatory changes as they adapt to a fresh water environment and at the same time they are still soft like an ocean fish which leaves them very vulnerable to hooking damage. You may or may not have noticed that fish caught on tribs that are darkened usually have tough flesh and are more difficult to damage. Well, springers are easily damaged. They are waiting until August/September to spawn. Last spring I fished the Columbia and found the way fish are released to be terrible. I don't really blame the sport fishing fleet. It is hard to release a thrashing scale spitting fish that is hooked good and in a net. I wish we would just get real on these hook/mort rates. I find it curious NMFS lets us get away with 10%.

Live capture long term mortality rates are projected through the use of short term mortality rates. Whether or not an individual makes it all the way to its destined spawning ground is too costly of an undertaking to investigate. The sport and commercial hook/capture mort rates are both extrapolated after the fish are held in a enclosure for a lenght of time. Instant mortality is a fish that is lifeless when it is landed.

If you kept informed on this subject you would know that the allocation of harvest is heavily weighted on the sporty side. For instance, Willamette springers are 100% for the sporties until the run size exceedes a number around 40,000 then the split starts off at something like 70% sport 30% commercial and then commercial allocations slowly move up as the run size does. Both fisheries are intensly monitored to ensure closure when allocation is reached.

That is the fact jack

Although I admit my sporty hook/mort rate is an opinion.

finclipped · 11-19-2001, 05:39 AM

So whats the mortality on a fish in a gillnet that has its gills collapsed and can't breath for several hours?

Joe Schwab · 11-19-2001, 06:32 AM

The only reason catch rates have been lower for gillnets in recent years is the fact that run sizes have been teetering. With larger runs in the forecast don't think for one minute there are not those out there who are punching numbers trying to figure out a way to get more fish into the net. Perhaps you don't remember the years of the 70s when the season was open on the Columbia and nets were in not for days but for weeks at a time. If you read the articles last year regarding tangle nets, biologists predicted that if the nets worked they could allocate many more times the number of fish than they do now. Kiss sportfishing goodbye.