Chehalis River Winter Steelhead 2022-2023

What’s really going on with the Chehalis River winter steelhead season of 2022-2023? Why are recreational anglers being denied access to consume hatchery steelhead and coho which have been raised for the purpose of consumption via the license fees we’ve spent?

Is this all to protect and conserve the vital wild stocks of steelhead whose numbers have dipped precipitously over the last decade and haven’t shown signs of recovery?

Some of the answers may surprise you…

I’ve written quite a bit recently about the Chehalis River steelhead situation this year. There’s still a lot I don’t know about what’s really going on.

However, I do believe we can follow the data and the science to come to some logical conclusions about what’s going on, and perhaps, what if anything we can do about it.

First, you may want to take a look at the coastal steelhead preview piece I wrote back in September, essentially predicting we would be here before anything had been communicated publicly.

You should also read the announcement from WDFW about the modified coastal steelhead season.

So let’s start digging into the data that creates the backdrop of where we are. This is important, because there are nuances to this entire situation that need to be understood.

The outlook for Chehalis wild steelhead is challenging

The Chehalis River system has only achieved wild steelhead escapement goals in 10 of the past 26 years. It’s not clear what the escapement was prior to 1996, but from older catch records it’s safe to say they were much healthier.

It’s also safe to say we’ve been in this situation for almost 3 decades!

The above slide is pulled from the North of Falcon presentation related to salmon conditions in the ocean, but there’s also a correlation between ocean conditions and steelhead survival as they share the same food web in many ways.

The generally warming ocean of the past 6 years also matches with the lower-than-average Chehalis wild steelhead returns.

But what’s worse, is that while ocean conditions have improved, there is a generally warming trend that makes the events of the past 6 years and the warm water blob event more likely in the future.

So, just because the seasons are closed in 2022-2023 or were closed in 2021-2022, don’t expect an immediate bounce back of wild steelhead on the Chehalis River.

What kind of steelhead fishing opportunity is there on hatchery fish?

So how many hatchery steelhead are returning to Chehalis river system?

While the hatchery run size has also been impacted by the same conditions as wild steelhead, there’s still a significant amount of hatchery steelhead harvest opportunity.

The Puget Sound Steelhead situation is completely bleak as smolt plants have been reduced and cut back to the point where only a few hundred hatchery steelhead return.

That puts the Chehalis River system as the best opportunity for hatchery steelhead that’s close to where most people live. Without the Chehalis being open, the Pugetropolis steelheaders and many Chehalis Valley locals have no choice but to seek steelhead opportunities elsewhere.

And let’s be honest, a fair number will just not fish for steelhead this winter anywhere.

How much damage will be done to the connection between angler, land, and resources by closing the Chehalis River system 2 years in a row?

Am I suggesting that we should keep a river open at the expense of wild steelhead conservation? Let’s investigate this with data…

How much impact is there on wild steelhead from recreational angling?

Let’s examine to what degree sport anglers impact wild steelhead with all the selective fishing methods in use…

The 2020-2021 season was when the most recent angling opportunity existed on the Chehalis River system and there were 61 wild steelhead caught…and the year prior it was around 70.

The impact from a sport fishing season across the entire Chehalis basin is less than 100 steelhead…that’s around 1% of the total escapement.

If you tell me that we can have an engaged recreational angling community at the cost of 1% of the total escapement of wild steelhead, that seems like a good trade!

But, what if we viewed that number as too high, but we still wanted to create as much opportunity as possible on the Chehalis River?

Let’s consider another scenario:

What other scenarios would allow recreational anglers to access fish on the Chehalis River system?

What if sport anglers fished all of Dec on the lower area of the Chehalis for coho and steelhead?

We are talking about a small handful of encounters! Not even mortalities (which are calculated as 10% of encounters)…

So, in the above scenario, the impact is between 0 and 1 wild steelhead mortalities. That seems pretty acceptable, right?

Apparently not, since this scenario is not what the 2022-2023 regulations represent.

Conservation and the sport angler

You may be reading this and thinking I’m coming from the wrong place entirely. As in, I seem to be pro-consumption, even if it risks the goals of conservation. But, that ignores a crucial set of facts about conservation:

Conservation didn’t exist in this country prior to laws which protect wildlife and funding of wildlife management.

That funding comes almost entirely from taxing recreational consumption of the resource.

In other words, conservation is funded by consumption.

Anyone taking aim at consumption is a true threat to conservation.

Yet, that’s exactly what’s playing out in the state of Washington right now. We are undertaking a grand experiment where the system of conservation which has been in place for the past century is being undermined in favor of a conservation without consumption approach.

What about the science?

The data I’m sharing comes straight from these science-backed sources. I didn’t invent it to make my point…I’m following the data.

It’s not the biologists/scientists who are recommending we shut things down on the Chehalis River system…

So why are the seasons that biologists want, not being enacted at WDFW?

So why are the decision makers at WDFW seemingly deciding against science to also hurt the groups who fund conservation?

Let’s explore the possible explanations here…

I worked 20 years in the big corporate world of IT and 15 of those years in a highly competitive big technology company, which provides me with some background experiences to talk about power dynamics within and outside of organizations.

And how decisions get made…There’s always an incentive system at play somewhere…

I can think of two possible scenarios at play here as to why a set of regulations would be crafted to hurt important user groups without any real benefit towards conservation, and in fact, one could argue that will hurt conservation in the long run:

1. Tribal groups wanting recreational anglers to not get to fish selectively if there are not enough wild steelhead to fish non-selectively with gill-nets.
2. Anti-consumption groups within WDFW looking for any excuse to stop consumption.

Originally, I suspected #1 might be the case, and conveniently it’s what WDFW stated publicly about why the Chehalis River system got the set of regulations it did.

Now, they didn’t actually word it as I have, but the statement was that the tribal groups wanted maximum protection of the resource.

When you dig into the nuances and details though, you can see a different set of regulations such as a December long coho/steelhead season on the Chehalis below Oakville and the Satsop (or perhaps a more hatchery heavy tributary) is still possible while providing maximum protection of the resource.

Not to mention, the tribes surely see the recreational angler as another pro-consumption conservation group just as we see them. That alliance is necessary to counter anti-consumption anti-conservation groups that promote anti-science views of wildlife management and have no broad base of interested constituents who will put their money where their sentiments are with regard to preserving critical wildlife habitat.

There really are only two sides to this issue. There’s pro-conservation consumption and there’s anti-conservation anti-consumption.

Okay, so let’s explore #2 a bit…

Did you know that the governor-appointed WDFW commission is the group that sets wildlife policy and hires and fires the WDFW director?

Sort of like a company board on steroids, since a board typically doesn’t set policy as much as provides fiduciary oversight and can hire/fire the CEO.

Now, why this is important because the past 5 appointments to the commission have all been for anti-consumption anti-conservation members who neither hunt nor fish. This is a 9-member group that sets policy on hunting and fishing, so the majority within the most important group, most responsible for providing sustainable consumption opportunity is now against consumption and is setting policies which choke off conservation funding over the long term…

At the same time, anti-consumption groups like Wild Fish Conservancy, Trout Unlimited, and the like are getting more organized to specifically aim to reform WDFW towards being anti-consumption.

So with that in mind, it stands to reason that some of the folks in lower layers of management would set policy to please these anti-consumption commissioners.

We are about to find out if conservation is still viable while hurting the groups who care the most…

So what can we do about it?

The most important thing we can do is to stay engaged. I don’t know yet where to point people on this topic. I’ve asked this question to people far more connected than I, and I haven’t got great answers.

I do know that the biggest thing that threatens the outcomes we want to see is our own apathy.

There may be a time to throw in the towel and not buy a hunting or fishing license in a given year, but I don’t think it’s that time yet.

And even if we cut off funding to prove a point, don’t we still lose? If we truly believe anti-consumption is anti-conservation, won’t cutting off funding result in irreparable harm to wildlife management? That is the argument after all against anti-consumption groups…

My goal is to increase engagement.

Sometimes you have to stay close enough to an issue as it circles the drain to have the influence at the right moment to affect the outcome.

Keep tabs on this topic, look for opportunities to engage, and boycott companies that fund the anti-conservation groups.

And get out this winter to enjoy the resource we aim to promote and protect. This site is dedicated to highlighting all the opportunities, as others are in this space as well.