Salmon fishing in Salt? MUST READ!!

[Lepper]

this is from the world newspaper...... And what it says can really put a damper on my fishing this summer in the salt..

By Susan Chambers, Staff Writer

A crowd of about 100 recreational and commercial salmon fishermen and representatives from related industries packed the Umpqua Room at the Red Lion Hotel on Monday evening and told fishery managers: We don't like your options.

Representatives and staff of the Pacific Fishery Management Council, the quasi-governmental body charged with developing fishery management plans, came to Coos Bay to gather input about a range of options for this summer's salmon fishery. The council will accept more public comment in Tacoma when it meets the first week of April, then make a final decision later that week.

For commercial fishermen on the South Coast, the range of options dwindle the closer the area is to the Klamath River, the river system responsible for most of this year's shortened seasons.

Though the options contain other management options such as sport and commercial allocations and sizes of harvestable fish, the main changes relate to seasons. In previous years, fishermen could fish most of the summer and into October, but in general:

€ from Cape Falcon to the Florence South Jetty: There would be no fishing in July or August;

€ from the Florence South Jetty to Humbug Mountain: There would be no fishing in June, July or August; and

€ from Humbug Mountain to the California border: there would be no fishing in May, June, July or August.

In addition, the size of Chinook that fishermen would be allowed to keep would increase as the season wears on, from 27 inches to 28 inches.

The problem, managers say, is that low spring flows in 2002 - when water was diverted to California farms - created multiple problems for young and adult salmon, cutting down on the numbers of fish that survived that year. Now, three years later, that year class is too small to sustain a higher level of fishing. Enough fish must survive natural mortality and fishing to reproduce and keep the population strong.

Though many fishermen said the science on which managers base their decisions isn't accurate - "You're doing science on computers, not on fish," Port Orford troller Chris Aiello said - other fishermen were simply dismayed.

"There are none of these options that are acceptable," Oregon salmon troller Rayburn Guerin said at the meeting. "We've been held hostage by the Klamath system way too long. ... How many millions of dollars do you want the Klamath to extract from coastal communities?"

Recreational fishermen, too, didn't particularly care for their options.

The Chinook season, under all four options for sport fishing between Cape Falcon and Humbug Mountain, would run March 15-Oct. 31, with a shorter season for the selective coho fishery. The coho fishery would be restricted by a few weeks over what it was last year. Additionally, sport fishermen would be allowed to catch roughly half the number of fish they were allowed to catch in 2004.

Charleston Harbor Master Don Yost, noting that he was concerned about both recreational and commercial fishermen and revenues to coastal communities, challenged the council to find more options.

"Without options, they're out of business," Yost said. "Let's find them a few more days on the ocean."

[saman]

from Cape Falcon to the Florence South Jetty: There would be no fishing in July or August;

€ from the Florence South Jetty to Humbug Mountain: There would be no fishing in June, July or August; and

€ from Humbug Mountain to the California border: there would be no fishing in May, June, July or August.

I'm sure this meeting yielded a lot of constructive input.

I don't even know where to begin :whazzup:

[Mark Mc]

Yes this is bad news for the commercial trollers, but it isn't bad at all for most of the Oregon sportfishers. OK so they dropped the coho quota a bit. But so what? Chinook is open all spring, summer, and fall. And with the commercials off the water for a good part of the summer, there will be even more chinook available for sporties, and you won't have to play "dodge the stick boat."

[SouthCoastStu]

Thats my take on it to, Mark. Bad for commercials, good for sporties. I feel bad for the guys that depend on the Nook troll fishery to make a living. Probably won't be long until they put the hurt on sporties using the same logic.

As far as the Coho goes, it's based on the predicted hatchery return, which is just that, a prediction. However, after hearing a bunch of guys bragging about having to go through 20 nates to get a clipped one, it doesn't bother me too much if it's a short season. Saw a lot of poor handling of nate Coho's on the salt last year :depressed:

On the bright side, it should be better than average fishing in the Bays this fall

[Uglygreen]

Yeah, I was just thinking that a lot more Chinook were going to be around to pull my bobber down this fall!!!

Brad

[Megabites]

I don't have a problem with the changes if the reasons are valid. If not I will be a bit upset. Last years Coho where very scarce compared to the previous couple of years. I think we will spend more time targeting nooks this year. What I am really concerned about is the prediction for a bad return this year and the high potential for the same conditions that caused it in 2002 to return this year. Mainly not enough rain. Combine the two and the years to come look even worse. :depressed:

[wak'm&stak'm]

I hope we don't seperate ourselves to much from the commercials.....it is not the sports vs the commercials.
I think ALL fisherman better stick together.

[Mark Mc]

As was stated, the situation this year comes down to the Klamath River. And the Klamath issues boil down to one thing.....lack of enough cold water coming down the river. And that issue stems from the whole Klamath Basin / agriculture / water "rights" battle.

I guess when they decided who had "rights" to the water, the salmon didn't show up at the table to speak up. Stupid-A$$ salmon....if they didn't bother to speak up and let the potatoe and alfalfa farmers and Bureau of Reclamation know they couldn't tolerate 68 + degree water, or low flows, well geez it's their own dang fault. Besides, a promise of water to desert farmers is a promise....you can't expect the government to back out now. The folks representing coastal economies losing 10's of millions of dollars, losing their businesses & homes, because of salmon closures should just buck up.

Yes this is tongue-in-cheek.....but this Klamath FIASCO is the biggest cross-governmental-agency screw-up you can imagine. The ripple effect goes far and wide.....it's causing shortened ocean seasons from Fort Bragg CA to the WA border. All because of a promise that had no way in reality of being kept.

p.s. to Keta and any of his friends in the K Basin....no personal offense to any farmer. This thing was doomed from the beginning, and there is still no leadership in sight to fix it.

[tailchaser]

I agree with Wak..on this one. One side of me isn't sorry to see the commy's shut down, but it really isn't going to stop there. I don't have anything against an honest commy fisherman either, it's more in the line of thinking there will be more chinook around if they're not targeting them.. :grin:

Back to reality of the situation. Think of this, they're cutting off commercials completely before the return of fish is even known. Guess what, they screwed up the return terribly everyone knows that but what you don't see is the fact they're going to start collecting data on returning jacks soon. They're a prediction to the next year's run size. When that comes back bad, like we know it will, they'll shut down sports too. This is merely the first step. Enjoy the salmon season now, because if this passes which it looks like it will without having data to support it, think what they're going to do with a low jack return next year. The ban is going to extend throughout northern oregon and washington, just watch.

I do see however, an alarming trend with the PMFC. If things go sour in California, the greenies are putting together arguements that reach well beyond thier borders in efforts to thwart fishing totally. Both the rockfish and this current situation shows the trend. The most alarming thing, is all of this is being done on absolutely zero concrete evidence. Maybe california does have a problem, maybe oregon and washington don't have the same stock issues with rockfish? Show me data for the last 10 years that supports thier decisions that's not subjective to fluctuations in catch tendancy's and species targeted?

Secondly, a governmental and local disaster is rippling down and affecting us all. As long as the enviro's can make a case that an endangered run of any sort could be threatened by fishermen, we'll all lose with the current PFMC. By not knowing where salmon travel, what really effects them in the river and the ocean we'll never know and we'll keep making decisions that are spurned from a reaction instead of hard facts.

That fishery has been in trouble for a while and probably had several die-offs from this same situation multiple times in the last 10 years. This particular time, someone noticed. I'm not taking sides on blame, but as soon as people down there can stop pointing fingers and accepting blame on both sides of the fence will something finally get done. To compound the problem you have the native americans stretching nets across the upper reaches of the river not allowing anything to pass. Are they going to cut off them gillnetting the most precious area? Probably not, they'd be labeled racist and all other names politically, so the easy answer is you and me and going to take another one in the pants in the coming future. The commercials were merely the first man to fall. Not sure what we can do when talking to deaf ears besides there needs to be a shakeup in that governing council, and soon if we're ever going to fish in the salt again...........I'll give the greenies one thing, I didn't see this one coming, but I won't be caught off guard again on how sneaky they are becoming.

tc

[Chum King]

TC,

This wasn't a surprise to anyone who was watching the forecasts back in 2004. The 3 year old Klamath fall chinook forecast in 2004 looked bad, and the subsequent forecast for the 4 year old component this year was even worse than originally anticipated.

There is a sharing plan in place for the Klamath fall chinook that divides up the allowable catch between the tribal fishery, the river sport fishery, the CA ocean commercial fishery, the CA ocean sport fishery, the OR ocean commercial fishery, and the OR sport fishery.

The "Klamath Chinook Year" runs from September 1 through August 31. In other words the fish that were caught in the Oregon commercial fishery last September and October had to come out of this spring and summer's fishery. This was based on the coded wire tags recovered in the fishery last fall and are not so affectionately often referred to as "credit card fish" i.e. caught one year and have to be "paid" for the next year.

The Oregon sport fishery is probably also going to have to take some reductions in Klamath impacts this year. However, at this point those have all been put in the Klamath Management Zone (Humbug Mt., OR to Horse Mt., CA). For Oregon that means Gold Beach and Brookings will be looking at shortened fishing opportunity this summer.

As usual, fish need water and the water situation in the Klamath has resulted in some poor chinook survival recently. The biggest question is whether this is a long term trend? I am not aware of any long range forecast to suggest that.

On a positive note. The forecast for the Sacramento basin chinook is for 1.6 million+. That is a record level, and yes those chinook show up off the Oregon Coast. There should be plenty of chinook to catch this summer.

So sympathize with your friends who are commercial trollers, and enjoy what should be a good chinook fishing year in the ocean off Oregon this year.

Chum King

[Nofish]

Being somewhat involved professionally in all of this...I would echo Mark Mc's assessment that the Klamath water situation is:
a) it's not necessarily the farmer's fault
b) a huge government screw up.

After reading the article - especially the point about the 2002 fish kill...it wasn't just California farms getting the water - it was Oregon farms as well. I think it's important for Salty Dogs to know that both Oregon and California are on this runaway train, with the feds at the controls (kinda scary).

Reality is that we will be dealing with this problem for many years. The fact that it has impacted sport and commercial fishermen from Pigeon Point to Cape Falcon in the big scheme of things may not be so bad...perhaps now more folks will get involved in trying to find solutions for this mess.

Following is an update that I copied over from a discussion thread I started on Coastside:

Currently, the snow pack in the Upper Klamath Watershed is at 30% of normal; losing +/- 1% of snow pack per day. Most folks are saying that the "snow melt benefits" will end by the end of April beginning of May.

Water bank - acquired 120,000 acre feet - NOAA Biological Opinion (BO) called for 100,000AF. Water bank sources include: approximately 42,500 from land idling, 62,500 ground water pumping & 15,000 from refuges. Water bank cost: $ 8 million (which goes to the irrigators). The Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) feels "they will be able to barely squeak by and meet both FWS and NOAA BO's if everyone cooperates" (hard to imagine this will be the case due to the large number of non project folks using water above the BOR project). Currently "C" users in the federal project have been advised they will not receive water. BOR feels "A" and "B" users will get their water IF folks cooperate. Governor Kulnogoski has issued a Declaration of Emergency for Klamath and Baker Counties (http://governor.oregon.gov/Gov/pdf/eo0502.pdf).

Spring-Summer Flow Issues: Even with the BOR's optimistic prediction that they will be able to meet both the lake and river BO conditions...flows in the Klamath will be extremely low. BO flows for a "critically dry year" range from 874 CFS on April 1 to 500 CFS by July 1. September BO flows for a "critically dry year" are 722 CFS. The 2000 juvenile fish kill occurred from mid-June into early July. The 2002 adult fish kill occurred in September. BOR will use water bank flows to maintain lake level BO and Klamath River BO flow levels. During April and May, the BOR will try to maintain 500-700 CFS above BO flows using water bank. By end of May BOR anticipates being at BO flows or 100-200 CFS above BO flows. Flows above BO assume water bank water is available in the system. This of course is not set in stone. Hang on for another bad year.

Sorry for the grim news. Bob

[lingslayer]

The problem, managers say, is that low spring flows in 2002 - when water was diverted to California farms - created multiple problems for young and adult salmon, cutting down on the numbers of fish that survived that year.

Farmers in the Klamath Basin use little or no water in the late winter/early spring, as the canal system at the headwaters isn't even filled prior to April 1, and even then there is little need for water due to low temps. NorCal farms however are getting water from the Klamath's tribs below Irongate, (CA side) and the lack of flow has to affect lower smolt survival greatly. In this case I seriously doubt it was a water temp issue, just because Klamath water is so darned cold in the spring.

It sounds more like a lack of water in general. That is directly attributable to NorCal farms and the Gov agencies involved in water supply regulation from the lower reaches.

Jamie

[Nofish]

During winter, water is being held back (stored) in Upper Klamath Lake (especially in drier than normal years) instead of flowing down the Klamath. If you follow the 40 year average on releases from Iron Gate - the spring releases have been far below what is considered "average" these past few years. What has happened is the biological opinion - written by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - has not adequately addressed flows in the mainstream Klamath.

You are correct about the Shasta and Scott River water users below Iron Gate - they too are part of the problem - and also part of the solution.

Here's whatshappening as I understand it to the outmigrating juvenile chinook, coho and steelhead: These fish (+1, +2 year old coho/steelhead and young of the year chinook) typically use high winter and spring flows to get down into the lower Klamath and estuary. There is a protozoan parasite native to the Klamath River - Ceratomyxa shasta. Under certain conditions, an infection by this parasite is fatal to outmigrating salmoninds. Fisheries pathologists are still trying to figure out what's going - as they are barely now understanding the pathology of the organism. One thing they have discovered is any outmigrating smolt not through the Seiad Valley area by the middle part of the April is probably going to die. Low flows seems to have an impact on the infection rate and throw in higher temps and it's "game over".

That being said, this is a complicated mess - but it's every bit the upper Basin's responsibility to cooperate as it is the Shasta/Scott water users. This year in the Shasta and Scott - most of these guys will probably only get one or two cuttings of alfalfa - mainly because of drought but also because of conservation measures to assist salmonids. Meanwhile, the upper Basin "A" and "B" water users are going to get full delivery - in spite of 33% of normal snowpack. All I am saying is that it's everyone's problem - and to fix it - things will have to change both above and below Iron Gate. I hope this helps. Bob

[As yet un-named]

Only two things are going to help the Klamath System.

1) reduce demand. Currently "water rights" in the basin are way over allocated in a "good" water year. It'll be a painful and complicated process, but someone's got to give up some of their "rights". Who pays for those rights on behalf of the fish will remain to be seen.

2) Provide Fish Passage. Another expensive, complicated, unpleasant thing. Whether it's done through damn removal or the construction of effective fish ladders won't matter so long as the appropriate "attraction flows" exist (see step 1 above).

I've read the accounts and seen the pictures of the salmon returns to the Klamath system from before the time of the reclamation project. I don't believe there's anywhere in the lower 48 at this time with that kind of productivity. I'll keep dreaming of catching a returning salmon in the Upper Klamath in my lifetime. Hope I live that long!

[BUGLEMAN]

All I know is that "politicaly" heads are going to roll if people don't start getting it right.