This is what I attempted to post earlier and ended up with simply blank pages.
In response to earlier post from others.
Not stopped Dan, I've been out of town and just checked back to see what's happening. As for the hand shake comment, I'll disregard
I get my info BTW, much more to come in the next few weeks, from both the State Bio's and the Tribe Bio's. My point was simply that the State has NO MONEY and completely pulled out of any steelhead production in the system. My second point was simply that the Tribes are at least continuing a Brood Stock program that they and the State started. This spring the plan, "with State Bio's" is to harvest some fish from additional small tribs to assist with the program. Not a huge expenditure that I guess the state can afford.
Just for the record, the hatchery produced Chinook are 99.9% clipped. They have to be and they release up to 2 million per season on a good year. The old practice of not clipping, no longer happens.
Yes it sucks that they release all those Nooks and the Chum, also up to 2 million a year, in the lower river. It does nothing but support their commercial fishery.
The Puyallup Tribe claims that they do not net past Dec 31st every year. That is the end of their Chum net Fishery, and as far as I know, they police this very well. If you guys see nets in the lower system after the New Year, they would like you to report it. They are trying to protect what is left of the Jan through April native run.
The Puyallup system is a victim of the whole Puget Sound problem. It is the entire system, not just the Puyallup. Back in the day, and the numbers don't lie, the Sportsman took an equal amount of native fish out of our systems year in year out. The State does a terrible job at managing our fisheries PERIOD. The Tribes pretty much set their seasons and harvest as they please. This pertains to Salmon and Steelhead.
The Steelhead issue with Puget Sound Rivers is a serious one and folks need to get educated on what brought it to this. As mentioned above in this thread it was a combination of several issues over the years, that were unfortunately figured out far too late.
As stated "a glimmer of hope"... If right now there is any program to continue to assist in the production of those native fish and works towards strengthening those runs in all three strains within this system, I say support the cause.
Don’t get me wrong; I sit on a couple of committees and get very, very frustrated at the whole process. The latest efforts and time is spent with the small group trying to save the Humtulips Hatchery system. Plenty of guys on this fishing site fish those systems as well. I never saw a single one make the drive down, just to attend the original public meetings. It is very time consuming to be involved in any of this when it pertains to recovery. Most guys just want to fish, have their shot at their fish and sit back and biatch about all that is going on.
The Puget Sound issue will take years to bounce back. To help prevent some of our other fisheries following suit, I challenge everyone to take some of their personal time this year and get involved with something that will make a difference. I’ll have more info coming out soon on the Hump issue and we will be seeking volunteers to assist with marking fish this spring. Do yourself a favor, volunteer one or two days, so at least you can say you made the effort, in some regard, as opposed to just sitting around and bitching about it.
