Cowlitz River gets 8,000+ Coho jacks!

[Born to be Wild]

As I posted a few weeks back, I don’t think 2004 is going to go down as an impressive hatchery coho year.
I believe the return of hatchery coho this year will be approx. between the 2002 and 2003 run that were not barnbusters.
2003 had a strong early component and weak late component as predicted.

The good news for the Cowlitz coho fishermen is I believe we are in for a good return this year and I’m just taking an uneducated guess of around 60,000 coho!
As I said that is just my uneducated guess.

For the entire SW Washington/Oregon run (OPI), I’m going to take a swing at 500,000-600,000 hatchery coho and 300,000 to 500,000 Oregon coastal wild coho (OCN’s) for the year 2004.
See what the big boys come up with in a few weeks or so.
Their hatchery preseason estimates are usually pretty accurate. OCN's are not!
Of course if we end up with some major flood this year, the OCN's will take it's toll and, well you know, I don't want to think about it.
Jen will do her no flood prayers.

Jack coho numbers are only part of the equation and only so accurate but the best indicator of the following years return.
The Cowlitz seemed to have quite a few jacks this year what little I fished it, the jacks seemed real healthy and of good size.
The official count for the Cowlitz thus far and I imagine it is winding down is 8,000+ jacks and that compares to ~ 4,500 jacks in 2002 which translated into a 30,000 fish return (excess coho) this year and approx. 14,000 jacks in 2001 that translated into an all time record return of 73,000 Cowlitz coho in 2002 (a year ago when we keeled them). :grin:

2001, the big hatchery coho year, the Cowlitz saw a record year that year also and I believe it was around 70,000 coho.
Don’t remember how many jacks the Cowlitz saw in 2000, but you can look it up
Here.

Hopefully the Toutle will get a good return next year also as you can catch them right downtown Longview also as they migrate through the lower Cowlitz.
The Toutle didn’t see many jacks this year but it didn’t last year either and had a big return of ~ 30,000 coho this year.
Unlike the Cowlitz, the Toutle doesn’t seem to be consistant regarding jack counts. (Neither is Eagle Creek on the Clack).

The good thing about this situation is that the Toutle is an early strain coho (type S) and the Cowlitz coho are the late strain (type N).
So the Toutle brats will be cruising right through downtown Longview as early as Labor Day and when they run out of gas around the beginning of October, the late strain Cowlitz fish will just be beginning and take you all the way through November or until the Toutle blows out the lower Cowlitz.
Note: The early strain Toutle/Green coho are a very early strain at that.

I’m not concerned about promoting the lower Cowlitz because their are plenty fish (normally) and lots of room for both bank maggots and boaters alike.
It is a very easy fishery and I caught more than enough using Brad’s Wiggler’s last year.
Spinners work also but not near as effective as Brad’s Wiggler’s or the old style Wart’s.
Kwickfish work well also as I seen a couple guides using and catching them a year ago (2002) but I think I usually caught as many as they did or more on Wiggler’s.
Eggs work well also but I think they work better up towards Camelot or Castle Rock than they do in the lower stretch from Lexington down to the mouth.

Most of the lower Cowlitz coho you will catch regardless of whether they are the Toutle fish or the Cowlitz fish will be chromer’s and a good share taxing sea lice.

This is a fishery where a beginner can catch quality fish right off the bank or in a boat.

My guess is that the Cowlitz will be the only river with an increased dailey bag limit on it this year whether from the get go or in-season change.
I would think it would start out at a 3 or 4 fish a day limit.

Again this is only my opinion and not that of WDFW or anyone else just based on my experience with these coho up here and the fisheries in recent years.

We’ll see but I am very optimistic about the Cowlitz and the excitement is starting to build.

By the way for those of you that think the “nets” get ALL the fish, the Cowlitz had 30,000 excess coho return this year that managed to get through, around and after the nets this year and that was after the sports fishermen had a shot at harvesting 3 a day also. Not to mention the ocean fishermen.
Last year they had 73,000 excess coho that somehow managed to elude everybody also.

My issue with the nets is a whole different issue.

Well have a prosperous year this year everybody and I’ll see a lot of you ifisher’s up here this fall now that I live locally here.

Dano

[Flatfish]

Lotta homework there Dan! You get an A+ and a gold star on your report card!

I love Cohos. Hope your numbers are close.

Mark and the dog.

[BUGLEMAN]

Nice work Dan, very encouraging.

[Thumper]

Thanks Dan.

[glowball]

The cow might get that many if we don't let the nets sit at the mouth for 7 weeks again this year.

[Bob Barthlow]

Thanks Dan! and I agree with what llabwolg said

[ 01-10-2004, 09:04 AM: Message edited by: Rapid Robert ]

[Cowlitzfisherman]

Born to be Wild

I hate to be the one to breake the bad news, but you better enjoy those coho now. Both the hatchery coho fishery and hatchery sea run cutthroat on the Cowlitz is about to take a huge dump! It won't be long and both will be a thing of the past in the very near futhure!

Sport fishers don't even know it yet, but the Cowlitz coho production that had created those large numbers of retuning hatchery fish that you have mentioned are no longer in effect! While most of the fishermen were at sleep, Tacoma and a few self selected groups and agencies like, NMFS, WDFW, Tacoma, Trout Unlimited, and American Rivers all signed onto a "Settlement Agreement" that will assure you that we will never be seeing runs like the 70,000 adults again. Because most coho are 3 years olds when they return, you can still expect to have one or two more good years of past production coming back to Cowlitz.

But after that, the above agencies and special interest groups above have all agreed to cut hatchery production by almost 60%!! Not only will the coho be cut, but so will the early winter run steelhead, fall chinook and the entire run of "hatchery" sea run cutthroat! You guys ain't seen anything yet! While the public was sleeping, the Fishery Technical Committee (FTC) were secretly meeting in private behind closed doors developing a plan of destruction called the "Cowlitz River Fisheries and Hatchery Management Plan (FHMP)

If you want to see why the Cowlitz fishery is doomed all you have to do is to read what this elite group has planned for the sport fishers. When you go from 6 million coho to 2.31 million coho, something bad will surely happen!
You can view the plan at; http://www.ci.tacoma.wa.us/Power/par...05_%202004.pdf

Good luck catching those coho next year, because the hay days are over for good!

Cowlitzfisherman

[Fast Water]

Well,

Our Jack count at Lewis wasn't as impressive. About 4000 "S" & "N" in total.

We are still releasing 1.7MM or so Coho each year and based on a 3% low end average return, we are looking at 50K or so.

This year we recruited about 59K and the hatchery and the dam. These are the fish we touched. I suppose there is another 10 to 15K that went uncounted. Heck, I heard that there was over 3,000 that went up Cedar creek alone.

Anyway, maybe we will catch one of these guys in three years:




Baby's first bath (swim).


New Home.

This is me (yesterday) dumping about 3000+ Coho from an egg tray to a trough that is piped out to to the raceways. These are Type "S" Coho fry.
We ponded about 350K yesterday.

:smile:

[Born to be Wild]

I did take just a quick peep at the report.
Here's a couple things that caught my attention:

Conservation goals for Cowlitz River coho would be achieved by emphasizing natural
production, improving hatchery practices, reducing overall hatchery production (all
species combined), and controlling harvest rates on naturally produced fish in the Upper
Cowltiz River.

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">"Reducing overall hatchery production (all
species combined)"
Can't say that I haven't been warning folks about this on ifish.
We did it on the Oregon coast and it will have to be done everywhere else that there are depressed wild fish because of the overwhelming science.
Note the statement; "all
species combined"

5.6.2.1. Stock Reintroduction and Recovery
Cowlitz River coho are not currently listed under the ESA, so the recovery of this species
is not a management goal. However, as current basin coho production relies heavily on
hatchery fish, the major conservation goal of the FHMP is to increase natural production
and reduce hatchery production when possible. To achieve this goal, the FHMP calls for
the establishment of self-sustaining coho populations in both the Tilton River and Upper
Cowlitz River, and eventually the integration of the hatchery and natural components of
the run if it can be shown that natural production can be sustainable over time.

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">"Cowlitz River coho are not currently listed under the ESA"
Don't hold your breath!

[QUOTE] Hatchery Escapement Goal
Approximately 1,750 coho adults are needed to produce 2.31 million coho smolts
annually. Fisheries in the lower Cowltiz River will be managed so that the escapement
goal of 1,750 hatchery coho adults is met each year.
Production Adjustment and Credit Mechanisms
The Settlement Agreement requires that the FHMP identify methods to 1) adjust hatchery
production upward or downward to accommodate recovery of indigenous stocks, and 2)
develop credit mechanisms for production of high quality natural stocks. The actions
proposed for coho salmon to meet these requirements are listed below.
• Initial coho salmon hatchery production will be decreased from 3.1 million to
2.31 million smolts. Although only 1.55 million are needed to meet the adult
benchmark target of 124,277, the additional production will provide fish for
harvest, reintroduction, and carcasses to increase stream productivity.
• A five-year rolling average of the number of coho salmon produced naturally in
the Upper Cowlitz River Basin and Tilton River will be used to reduce the
number of juveniles released each year from the hatchery on a 1:1 basis in the
next brood year. The assumption that hatchery and natural coho produce similar
numbers of adult returns would be tested over time. The results of this analysis
will provide the data needed to adjust the juvenile ratio value upward or
downward.
• The proposed changes in hatchery rearing practices are hypothesized to increase
hatchery fish survival by 25 percent. The difference in survival between the two
test groups will be monitored over time. If this hypothesis is correct, hatchery
production would be decreased by a commensurate amount.
5.6.3.6.[QUOTE]

"Initial coho salmon hatchery production will be decreased from 3.1 million to
2.31 million smolts".

Now you (Cowlitzfisherman) said; "When you go from 6 million coho to 2.31 million coho, something bad will surely happen"!

Unless I missed something, it looks to me like a relatively small drop in coho smolts and not the reduction of over 3 million smolts you had quoted.

Jeesh, if it is only a reduction from 3.1 million to 2.31 million smolts, I won't loose any sleep over it.

Another interesting point listed was; ""The proposed changes in hatchery rearing practices are hypothesized to increase
hatchery fish survival by 25 percent. The difference in survival between the two
test groups will be monitored over time. If this hypothesis is correct, hatchery
production would be decreased by a commensurate amount".

Well let me know if I missed something here Cowlitzfisherman because I did go through the report rather fast.

Dano

[Cowlitzfisherman]

Born to be Wild

I hope that your calculations are far much better then that of Tacoma's Power best biologist were. Last year, Tacoma's biologist predicted that we would have well over 100,000 coho returning back to the Cowlitz Salmon Hatchery alone! Somehow we fell just a tad bit short (about 70,000 adults short!). You say that the 30,000 were "excess coho". That's not really correct. Those 31,000 coho are only 11,000 over the "hatchery escapement" needs. That's not such a huge buffer to have in a river the size of the Cowlitz

I am not sure if you knew it or not, but Cowlitz has always had large historic runs of well over 25,000 retuning adults return. And that after they had passed through the huge commercial net fishery that used to exist on the Columbia in the early 50's. Can you even imagine how many Cowlitz coho were harvested by the Columbia River gill BEFORE they even had the chance to reach the lower Cowlitz?

You might be right about the 60% number being enough, but you failed to take into consideration the commercial gill net harvest in the Columbia. If you didn't have the huge hit by the gill netters in the Columbia, maybe a 60% cut in production wouldn't have such drastic effects, but when you continue to allow the nets to continue to target the Cowlitz runs of coho, it's going to be really bad news for sport fishers. We will be lucky if they allow the 10,000 adult that are needed for the hatcheries needs to escape the nets. The Cowlitz has been a hatchery river for well 40 years now. Because of the "lack" of both up and down stream fish passage at Mossyrock, the Cowlitz must continue to depend highly on the hatcheries to produce it mitigation of fish. Tacoma Power has sold the agencies and a couple of do- gooder organizations (Trout unlimited and American Rivers) a three dollar bill, and now we, the sport fishers are the going to be ones who have make the "change" for there actions!

Do you know the real and complete history of the Cowlitz? If not, I will be happy to bring you and others up to speed on why it will be a dieing river before too long. Please let me known if you want to hear "the rest of the story" It's not a pretty one to tell!

Wild production will never bring back the runs on the Cowlitz! It may help add to the overall Cowlitz production of its overall fish production, but it will NEVER again be a big producer of "wild" native fish again!

Those "wild fish" stocks were gone decades ago!

Cowlitzfisherman

[ 01-10-2004, 06:53 PM: Message edited by: Cowlitzfisherman ]

[Cowlitzfisherman]

Born to be Wild

I didn't get the opportunity to read your last post before I made my last post. You can believe the BS that these jokers are feeding us, or you can read the real truth and figure it out for your self. My figures can be verified by my 5 years of attending every single relicensing meeting that was ever held in the last 5 years. Besides that, I was also a very active member of the Fishery Technical Committee (FTC) which was developed to reviewed all the technical data and facts that were related to the fishery issues on the Cowlitz River.

The 6 million number may or may not have been correct, because I was just rounding it off for this reply. The real exact numbers range from a low of somewhere between 5,200,000 to a high of 7,000,000! If you doubt my word, all you need to do is to read Tacoma's own Preliminary Draft Environmental Assessment (PDEA) or the NMFS Biological Opinion (BiOp). So if you used that true figure 5.2 to 7.0 million and you drop it down to 2.31; you might just loose a "little bit" more sleep then you think :grin:

If you need additional verification of my figures, you can find them the BiOp on Page 4-14. The BiOp clearly states that Tacoma releases on the Cowlitz, an average of 6 to 7 million coho smolts annually. So maybe I am running a million or so low! :grin:

If you can't trap the smolts in sufficient enough numbers to allow the runs to be self sustaining, you have no other choice but to depend on the hatchery production for most, if not all the total production needs. The success rate for trapping and collecting coho at the Cowlitz Falls Dam Project collection facilities rate is less then 32% (Mean rate)!

Now do you understand why we need to maintain the high number of hatchery coho?


Cowlitzfisherman

[nitroduk]

excellent research guys, thanks for the info!

[Born to be Wild]

Cowlitzfisherman, Thanks for the depressing news. :grin:

I'll have to read the report in the next day or two when I have time.
So, is 2004 or 2005 the first year of the major reductions?
If so, we will have a few years of potential large runs yet.

This doesn't surprise me at all other than the fact that niether me or any of my friends have heard about this yet.

The reason it doesn't surprise me is because of all the well documented science of the detrimental effects of the hatchery fish on the wild fish and the lower Columbia River wild fish are in a world of hurt.
An article in the Oregonian several months back warned of this possible scenario for these reasons.

Another reason it doesn't surprise me is because there is not the commercial troll coho fleet out in the ocean anymore and obviously there are plenty excess hatchery coho going to waste.

So, I am neither excited or bummed about the new plan and we will be able to live with a 60% decrease in smolts if I understood you correctly.

Also even though the numbers of smolts will be decreased by 60% doesn't mean the return will be reduced by that percentage.
The more smolts you plant, the more they are likely to attract predators and higher competition amongst themselves.

We have seen this on the Oregon coast where the hatchery coho stocking has been decreased 80% and yet we are seeing hatchery production about the equivelent of decades ago when ocean conditions were good and you had several millions of smolt stocked.

So who knows but there will still be some good fishing even with the decrease in smolts.
It won't be like 2001 or 2002 but you'll just have to work a bit harder for them.
Those two years were almost too easy though.
And of course they were all time record highs for Cowlitz coho.

The Elocoman lost one of its two hatcheries several years ago and the winters have been decreased by about 60% or so and yet it still has good steelhead fishing.
It's not the fishery perhaps best in the state that it once was, but it is still a good fishery.
Meantime the silvers had to be cut back also and I find it pretty easy and enjoyable to catch silvers there every year (when there is water).

So I don't think it is all doom & gloom but every more reason to get excited about this years return and take advantage of it.
And that is if I am right or even in the ball park.
As I said it is just a gut feeling but I got lucky and came out right on the numbers for last years OPI and maybe I'll get lucky again.
I'm pretty confident it will be a good year on the Cowlitz and I hope to get a bunch of interested ifisher's to get together and fish it together this year from both the bank and from boats a couple different times.

On a note regarding last nights post, the reason I am so optomistic and so hopefull on a 300,000-500,000 return of OCN's (Oregon coastal naturals) this year is because we are still experiencing good ocean and freshwater conditions, the OCN's returned at approx. 264,000/300,000 in 2002 and will be somewhere in that neighborhood in 2003 when they get done counting them and also 2004's parent year (2001) was somwhere's around 169,000 wild coho.
This will be our first year that we have had a big parental year of over 100,000 spawners.
2002 the best return in 50 years or so was based on the 1999 parent year and I imagine that was only around 60-80,000 spawners.

Of course there is seeding & carrying capacity of the streams also based on available habitat, so we'll see.

One last note:

In 1991 the other big hatchery year ('91 & '01) the Clackamas coho were as thick as Sockeye in Alaska (so it seemed) and were real aggressive biters.
The last two or three years I have been hearing from multiple sources that the Clack/Eagle Creek strain coho have had lockjaw syndrome (a disease carried amongst hatchery fish :grin: ).
I have not had any problem getting either the early or late strain hatchery coho up here in Washington to bite.
These fish are biters.

Dano

[Born to be Wild]

Hello Mark. Still got to get together and meet you one of these times.
Now that I'm just up the road from you, we'll have to get together.
We'll leave the hatchery polotics out of it though. :grin:

Yea, I seen the Lewis didn't have too impressive jack counts this year or niether did any of the rivers I remember looking at, but that doesn't always mean...

Drop me a line if you are headed up to Longview and I will do the same if I am headed down to Woodland.

Dan

[Born to be Wild]

Been away from a PC for a few days but thought I would try and clear some of this up.

Born to be Wild

I didn't get the opportunity to read your last post before I made my last post. You can believe the BS that these jokers are feeding us, or you can read the real truth and figure it out for your self. My figures can be verified by my 5 years of attending every single relicensing meeting that was ever held in the last 5 years. Besides that, I was also a very active member of the Fishery Technical Committee (FTC) which was developed to reviewed all the technical data and facts that were related to the fishery issues on the Cowlitz River.

The 6 million number may or may not have been correct, because I was just rounding it off for this reply. The real exact numbers range from a low of somewhere between 5,200,000 to a high of 7,000,000! If you doubt my word, all you need to do is to read Tacoma's own Preliminary Draft Environmental Assessment (PDEA) or the NMFS Biological Opinion (BiOp). So if you used that true figure 5.2 to 7.0 million and you drop it down to 2.31; you might just loose a "little bit" more sleep then you think

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">

Born to be Wild

I hope that your calculations are far much better then that of Tacoma's Power best biologist were. Last year, Tacoma's biologist predicted that we would have well over 100,000 coho returning back to the Cowlitz Salmon Hatchery alone! Somehow we fell just a tad bit short (about 70,000 adults short!). You say that the 30,000 were "excess coho". That's not really correct. Those 31,000 coho are only 11,000 over the "hatchery escapement" needs. That's not such a huge buffer to have in a river the size of the Cowlitz

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">Cowlitzfisherman,

Its not that I doubt your word. I have no idea how many smolts (coho or otherwise) are planted in the Cowlitz River.
I was just taking the info off the report that you posted.
I had no idea that the report is bs as you stated and maybe you should have pointed that out before you posted the URL for the report.

I did look at the WDFW site and see that they have been collecting around 5-7 million eggs for egg take the last few years, but don’t know how many they incubate.
If what you claim that the reduction is from 6 or 7 million smolts down to 2.3 million, that is a beeg difference.

As far as your statement; “You say that the 30,000 were "excess coho". That's not really correct. Those 31,000 coho are only 11,000 over the "hatchery escapement" needs. That's not such a huge buffer to have in a river the size of the Cowlitz”

I can’t buy into that one.
Are you claiming that they need 20,000 coho for eggs and milt? Ain’t no way that some hatchery is going to deal with that many fish to spawn.
If you read the WDFW site under hatchery escapements (the URL I posted), you will see that WDFW or Tacoma Power has released 27,500 of those 30,000 fish back into the river for nutrients, etc.
Obviously they don’t need 20,000 coho for escapement.

I didn’t understand your point on the gill netters but those figures I mentioned (70,000 coho in 2001, 75,000in 2002 and 30,000 in 2003), are after the ocean fishermen, Buoy 10 fishermen, Columbia River fishermen, Gill Netters and Cowlitz River fishermen (including the barrier dam) have harvested theirs.
Those are excess coho.

Dano

[Fast Water]

20,000 to spawn! :shocked: Yikes, no way. What a nightmare that would be. One can generally bank on 3500 eggs per hen and if that was a 1:1 spawn you would have 35,000,000 eggs.

If you wanted 2.3 million smolt to release you might take 2.4 to 2.5 MM eggs. You would need about 714 hens. (and of course 714 bucks)


:smile:

[Cowlitzfisherman]

Born to be Wild

Are you claiming that they need 20,000 coho for eggs and milt?

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">No I am not claiming that!

Sorry for my error in the math and how I had phrased it! You are correct that the "hatchery" doesn't need 20,000 back for its egg take. But the river does! The lower river and the hatchery need at lease 10,000 adults for there egg takes and natural production needs alone.

There bare bones needs for the hatchery production alone were 6995 adults. What you may not known, or understand is that "Tacoma Power" was, and still is responsible to mitigate for the lost of all the natural fish production that their Cowlitz Projects has caused due to there dam blockages of natural fish production when they built the two dams. Mossyrock dam had no up or down stream fish passage when it was build and blocked off about 85% of all the natural production in the upper Cowlitz.

Prior to the construction of Tacoma's dam(s) in 1963, the Cowlitz River historically produced an average of over 24,000 to 25,000 adults that retuned each year after all harvest had occurred. Those were just the adult's numbers that came from the natural production from the upper Cowlitz. WDF had estimated that the escapement goals were to be about 25,000 adults for Tacoma's mitigation. Mitigation was not done on just the amount of "eggs" that were needed to produce the total production of 24,000 hatchery coho. Remember, there are over 48 miles of habitat in the lower Cowlitz River that Tacoma was not responsible for doing any for mitigating for.

At the time (around 1950), the outside Troll catch of Cowlitz coho was about 24,000 adults, they took another 27,000 in Columbia River catch, and the sport catch took about 1,400. They needed and additional 24,000 adults coho for escapement. That brought the total amount of adult production from the Cowlitz to about 77,000 adult coho. WDF needed those 24,000 to 25,000 adult coho back for both the hatchery needs and natural production for the upper Cowlitz. Tacoma had to produce enough retuning adults to the "hatchery rack" to assure that they were meeting there mitigation each year to equal the amount of natural production that had came from above the areas that their dams had blocked or inundated.

Tacoma was not held responsible for any mitigation loss in the lower 48 miles of the Cowlitz for any natural production loss in the lower river. For over 35 years now, it has taken those 6-7 million coho to get back those 25,000 adults that were needed to meet Tacoma's mitigation for the Cowlitz. It's going to be a hard pill to swallow to believe that they will be able to reach or produce that same number of retuning adults now with only 2.31 million. Especially with the increased fishery by the gill netters on the Cowlitz stock of coho.

Again, I am sorry I had screwed up with that 20,000 number, but the Cowlitz can handle way more retuning adults then that. If I have missed anything in your questions back to me, please let me know, and I will give it another shot!

Thanks,


Cowlitzfisherman

[ 01-13-2004, 03:04 PM: Message edited by: Cowlitzfisherman ]