2024 Puget Sound Salmon Forecast LIVE - Q&A

welcome to the first p&w best life live stream we're going to be talking about the 2024 salmon forecast in a minute

here um I uh got the word out a little bit through a few different sources that

I was going to be doing this and uh just going to wait a few minutes for people to get a notification maybe join

otherwise uh it'll be recorded and you can watch it after the fact and and depending on how this does maybe I'll do

more of these and you know the intention was last year I made a a video about the

uh 2024 forecast and the north of Falcon process and you know that that um was

was well watched and commented on and and I thought well maybe I'll I'll try to go do it live and take live um

questions conversation about uh about the topics if if that's a that's a

better way to do it we'll we'll we'll find out here as we go through it I'm going to start with I'm going to start

with the shinook forecast um in a minute so the so the meeting on was was on Friday in Olympia

open for public attendance or zoom and you know I I did it I did it over Zoom

it was about two hours two and a half hours of presentation and then almost four hours of Q&A and of course you know

the the most popular uh question and type of question was related to Marine

Area 11 that you know there was a lot of and for good reason a lot of frustration about the way the summer season was

handled last year with um with early closures and you know 75% of the of the

of the quota for July August left on the table you know there was also a little

bit of that frustration in 10 although you know we had the early closure in August and then the later openers on the

weekends excuse me we largely got our fish our shinook and Marine are 10 um and if you

were you know if you were coo fishing last year uh you probably caught an awful lot of coo um definitely not

historically you know best year but maybe one of the best years uh

for for Resident Co that many could could remember so uh it was all in all a

good salmon season in 2023 uh for a lot of folks even though you know uh th

those those different issues definitely caused us some challenges but let's get let's get into 2024 I'm going to start

with uh I'm G to start with fall schnook and uh and we're going to review

let me see screen sharing works here here we

go all right so let's talk let's talk about the fal shook returns in

2023 first if you're watching uh here you know feel free to drop a comment let

me know uh what you're interested in what you're uh what you're most concerned about

for 2024 I'll make sure try to cover that as well so all right so so 2023

shook returns uh you could see from the the the you it's the same type of graph

with the picture of Western Washington is going to be used for for all all of the forecast and return slides you could

see the neutral you know is that is the blue 75 125% of the of the 10e average

run size uh and then good is over 125% you can you could see the slide there so

we we had a lot of red in the mid to North Sound part of of of Puget sown uh

which is unfortunate because this is where some of our runs are already

struggling and we'll get into that as we kind of get into the uh you know the forecast and what what might be going on

in terms of the salmon season setting process uh but if you were in the north North toown uh you know fishing the the

samish river uh incredible returns there as as continued to be extremely good the

South Sound actually ended up doing way better than than a lot of folks thought I think originally the squal was

expected to be under and it came in it came in over the pup was good so it's

kind of a mixed bag there but overall you know things were pretty solid for just the overall amount of Shinu that

came into Puget Town let's look at the forecast for

2024 so again in in the South Sound you have a lot of green right you have really uh

positive numbers in the South down I think we're expected to get somewhere around 990,000 hatry fish back over over

the total South down which is a which is a great number um not the best in the last four or five years but it's a it's

a strong number it's going to provide a lot of good fishing even if Marine Area 11 closes earlier uh than we want

although that's something that folks are working really hard at in the recreational community and also at the

department to try to a come up with ways to avoid these kind of closures uh Mariner 13 is usually open and 13 can be

really good shnook fishing in August and in September um for those sound those sound

fish North Sound Of course again the sish is is way up there right it's expected to be another really good

return and then mid sound uh and North Sound those those rivers that we've we

have some problems with the Stillaguamish the snom Mish you know they're they're more um and even Gadget

they're they're in that neutral range right so uh and then the green is is is also coming

in under as well but there's not a huge snook season on the green uh although I know there's been some in years past

that's not going to shock a lot of people uh what what this really is going to translate to is is you know there's

going to be some really good fishing in the transitory Marine areas you know talking about 4B you know Mariner 5 CQ

Port Angeles um you know Marine area 9 Admiral the inlet these these fish are

moving through and they're going to provide great fishing in that in that process as as they usually have I mean

most Summers um with numbers like what we're expecting 250,000 plus um shook to

come into P town the there'll be good fishing out there the big areas of concern are areas like Marine are 7

Marine are 10 um and maybe even Mar are 11 in terms of of uh encounters with

some some of the struggling struggling natural origin returns of shinook that that have most of the the constraining

Imp impact on our on our Fisheries just just as a um you know reminder if folks

aren't aware uh you know the pet Town natural origin shinar Esa listed uh which means

we only get to fish on them by uh filing a lot of paper work and having a lot of a monitoring framework and management

framework for making sure we don't have too much impact on on the the natural

origin shinook so and because those shinook don't stay in one particular

area they're all throughout uh the Puget town and the straight we you know there's a there's a whole modeling

effort to try to make sure that when they come up with the seasons uh that that the impact is not above what they

expect and the co-managers um you know the tribes have to agree to all of the the um the things

that that the department comes up with so it's and then together submit that to the federal agencies to um for approval

on the season so it is it is an involved process this north of Falcon is like the beginning stages of it where in this

first meeting was like the forecast kickoff so that's a long long- winded way of saying uh there's there's

challenges anytime we're trying to open up shook fishing and pujit sound and this is the the whole purpose of this is

just to try to help you understand maybe what some of those issues are um and

where the fishing is expected to be good and where where to expect maybe um some challenges based on based on all of this

so whether it's challenges in abundance or challenges in just having a season because of these hoops that that we're

jumping through here so all right enough on the the the forecast side let's just look

at a little historical perspective on the on the The Run size

here um so you know I got one of the questions I got on the um on the blog

post that I'm kind of you know following up with this live stream on pnwb bestlife.com is where's all the extra um

schnook from the the the additional plants for for the to feed the orcas right the srk Ws and so you could see

that uh you know this graph sort of towards the right the last uh four or five years have been um had had a big

spike in Hatchery schnook uh compared to some of this is cyclical that you're seeing on the graph here as well right we've had bad ocean

conditions uh in in that sort of 2014 2016 time frame 2017 was that Spike up

right uh was one of the better years of schnook returns in recent memory in Pub town but uh if you look at the the graph

of the last 10 years you can more clearly see uh the the um additional

schnook um number numbers that are coming in from a hatchery standpoint and if you really want to see you would you

would drill in on the particular uh particular Hatchery that you're that

you're interested in and and look at the that that are getting the additional uh smols from the uh srkw plants which

which I'd have to i' have to go look those up to to beyond that but in general I think we see we definitely see

a bump in shinook uh returns in the last three four years and and that's reflected here and we' were also been

benefited greatly from good ocean conditions very rare threee lenia right

that improved um temperatures in streams snow pack uh ocean conditions Etc so so

we're benefiting from all that if you just jumped on on the stream here definitely feel free to if you can drop

a comment I'm not quite sure how all this works this is the first time trying to do this so if uh leave a comment let

me know that you're here and what you're interested in uh when can we begin fishing uh for them so so this this is

the process thank thanks Jose for for dropping the first comment in here um

the the answer to that is really this process is is figuring that out right so right now we do have from last year's

process we have a marine area uh 10 and 11 Blackmouth season going on right now and I actually was out yesterday getting

beat up by 20 M hour winds and struggling to catch uh legal size keeper

schnook that's a whole another we could have a whole another stream on on Blackmouth and the issues there and the

challenges but right now uh it is open wedes uh Wednesday to Saturday for

marine are 10 Marin are 11 um you know Blackmouth shinook so but but this this

uh process is is to set the salon seasons for the 2024 summer season right

the it's it's weird you know we have a license year that starts on April 1 but

these all these Seasons aren't figured out until late June when they're finally printed the new the new regs come out

and uh and the salmon seasons for 2024 open up in in a variety of places right

so uh usually in usually you get by June 1st the resident coost season and then

July you know some of your schnook seasons and that's going to be dependent though on on this whole process so uh

stay tuned I'm gonna this won't be the this won't be the last video I make might be the last live stream depending

on how this goes uh won't be the last video I make on this process and certainly not the last blog post on p&w

bestlife.com on on covering it and you know there's many more meetings that I'm playing to attend and to try to um stay

plugged in and advocate for our opportunity as much as possible so um

all right let's look at we're going to go a little bit more uh we're going to look at the some

some individual forecast comparisons now so if you look at this is the natural

origin Chinook so this is where you can see some of the conservation issues and the season limiting constraints that

come up so uh this is comparing 2023 to 2024 and the you know these these

numbers are uh largely estimated using math um and they're they're done from uh

from Red counts of of Reds that are that are uh conducted um for to count

spawners so you have uh you know you have some a mix of kind of good news bad news here green Rivers down a little bit

um still guish is down between 2023 2024 that's a huge bummer because uh the sly

is is one of our most most constraining rivers um you know on the plus side

you've got more P natural spawners you got more Nali natural spawners uh those

are all good things um but but all of these in general over overall in general uh you could see Wild sh continue to or

I should say natural origin should continue to be uh continue to to go down

in their numbers so um uh oh yeah deas thank you so much for

that comment I appreciate the encouragement I'll keep I'll keep going uh if there's one person I'm helping out

I'll keep I'll keep going so appreciate that let me pull up the this is a little

bit more interesting because the numbers are much bigger and affect our actual abundances on our fishing Seasons here

Puget sown Chinook forecast comparisons right so we're going to look at uh you

know some of the numbers here in in green dungeon is hoko these are some of the straight Rivers we've had some

restrictions on from uh Gadget summerfall but some of the big numbers here are pretty steady the squal this

excites me a 15% bump and then n squal uh you know that's going to help our South Sound numbers and that's one of my

favorite schnook rivers to fish as well um so so you could see some of the you

know P down a little bit in the Hatcher numbers Green River down uh a little bit

as well um and and yeah so so uh and then the still guish hatry uh numbers

are are off a little bit as well and snow homish uh up that's a bummer because uh we don't we have some

challenges in our snow homish season I wrote about it on PW best life last year and that's one of the areas I'm most

involved with trying to try to help us figure out trying advocate for a season on that summer shinuk fishery on the sky

Kish as as the numbers are are keep keep improving and we didn't get to catch

many of those last year so that's kind of a bummer um all right now now we get a little bit more technical right kind

of going further and further into the deep end of the pool here with with what is happening this this is called the uh

this is kind of where they started us off at it's called The N Run which is the the nalf stands for new abundance

last year's Fisheries so they take all the new forecasts that they came out with and shared with us on on Friday and

they plug in last year's fishing Seasons into the model and just see where we see where we're at let's let's find a a

starting location for this whole process so we just know where we're at where are we going to have problems where we going

to uh what looks good Etc and so so you could see right

away uh well let me let me explain what some of these cols me so the abundance

tier these these numbers uh or these letters is acronym L is the low abundance thres threshold uh so uh umt

is the upper management threshold and all these things refer to and the lb is lower bound which is really bad that's

the the lowest the lowest management threshold and these what these things tie to is there's a shinuk management

plan that the department and the co-managers the tribes agree to and uh

is going to uh is being approved approved by Noah that makes it easier for our Seasons to go uh be set every uh

you know I think it lasts like 10 years or something like that just makes the process easier if they have an improved management plan with all the biological

opinions and and framework for for what's going on here so

uh the the threshold you're in the abundance tier you're in is going to correspond to an ER ceiling what is the

he what the heck is er uh ER is exploitation rate so how many of these fish are being uh are being taken and

you see these different percentages there's different types from Southern us um there's

pre-terminal um exploitation rates there's there's a bunch of different things to to unpack in here and I don't

want to bore you all with it uh the bottom line is you can kind of see where some of the trouble areas are and they

add up all the impacts that they get from Alaska from British Columbia uh the

tribes uh the sports uh all of that they don't include the seals and sea lines I think that should

those should be break broken out into their own separate category just so you see how many of them are eaten by seals

and sea liines Noah did that study a couple years ago that seven times the amount of of salmon can you know that

that are impacted by recreational and Commercial Anglers combined seals and sea lines eat seven times that number

which is an incredible incredible stat um we didn't talk about seals and sea lines the entire presentation which I

was bummed by because I think that's one of the most important environmental factors for us to to for us to

understand and uh and in the path forward you know last year we had someone speak to us about that and what

they're doing about that uh and the the Marine mamal protection act and what are the what can they do within that

framework um I'm hoping that will come up throughout this process because that's one of the most challenging

issues in pet sound you these Critters are all the way up our River Riv in some

cases just mowing down smols the harbor seals actually do most of the damage um

when a lot of times you don't even see them when you're not on the river you know in the winter time or spring these out migrations they're just mowing down

smols and consuming them so that's that's a whole another thing to address but let me just just focus for a second

on some of these natural origin stock issues so in particular the still guish

so so Ju Just what this means here so if you look at the still guish row it is is

uh it is a the unmarked uh the unmarked exploitation rates above the

L uh and and the nine the the southern us exploitation rate came through on the

now front at 9.4% so there's an ER ceiling of

9% uh and we we ran through the model the first cut was 99.4% now they could take that 0 4% from

in River Fisheries the tribes run that number to the right of it the 5.3%

that's the pre-terminal southern us exploitation rate so that's our marine fisheries right um after Canada gets a

shot at them so they could take that from our marine fisheries they could take that from the in River Fisheries

that has that's part of the negotiation that's part of what has to be worked out the one that's really a big concern here

is the snow homish um because it's below the lower bound according to the management framework the snow me needs

more than 700 fish to be above the L and uh it it's it's predicted to get

687 so that's that's a challenge which means that there is no exploitation rate

for that um but with uh we had this issue apparently two years ago and they

were able to work this out with the tribe so let's just say for the for the sake of um of of uh consideration here

that we end up with an 8.3% uh management Target than the the which is

the L rate that's in the management framework then the initial run says we're already there and then remember

this is last year's Fisheries which we did not have a robust shinook opportunity on the skyish last year so

we have some work to do and most of the impact on the skyish or this no homish

system is preterminal it's our marine areas it's mostly from our sport Fisheries in Marine area five six nine

um and whatnot so so that that's going to require some work to get um to to

carve out a fishery for this skyish I I'm hopeful we don't need that many impacts to be saved for the in River

fishery but I'm hopeful that um they're that we're close that there there is something that can be done that we will

get a summer uh shinook fishery on the skyish but it's not looking great right

out of the gate here so we'll we'll see where we'll see where that ends up so uh

and then the N I also have the N Run on our South Sound Hood Canal stocks

nothing here quite uh quite of concern I know the Nali has been brought up before

but this is really I believe more about Harvest share than a conservation concern the numbers are great but we

also um we also beat on that run quite a bit all throughout Puget town in the

river uh the tribes have a robust netting fishery there uh and and so we

have to stay with in our uh ER and we're close

um Don uh appreciate the question there why don't the tribes take control of the seal problems that's a really good

question um I I I have some thoughts on that but part of it I would just say is

um the the the whole seal and sea line problem dealing with it with with any

kind of lethal removal is politically very very challenging uh in the climate

we're in so just give you an example uh the mmpa allowed uh folks on the

Columbia River the Department's there to to follow a particular protocol for lethal removal of seals and sea lines

it's from the numbers it looks like it's basically saved the wamit steelite

fishery and some other some other critical Fisheries that were just getting decimated right by the uh the

seal and seeline concentration there at below the below fish ladders and where

where fish really pull up and they had a public comment period about

about the topic and 95% uh of the comments in that public

period were were against lethal seal and sea line removal the public is

overwhelmingly uh against the idea and yeah the tribes could just go uh just go

do go do that but the tribes have uh their own um their own desire to be to

fit into that political environment the with the services they offer the entertainment services the other things

they're doing so it it's not it the the tide has to change on this with the

general public which is you know one of the things I'd like to see happen with the the message getting out there more

clearly that it's about ecosystem management it's about stewardship and and right now we're not doing a very

good job of that with the number of these Critters just exploding and their population um just growing by tremendous

amount such that you know a lot of our a lot of our habitat restoration we're doing a lot of the the money we're

spending on hatcheries is just just going right into seal and sea line poop and we're spending billions of dollars

on that so that's you that's a significant challenge I think that's something that we've got to um stay involved with get that message out um

and and ask the department to to put numbers on it to to track it to manage it to show us show us what's going on

you know that Noah study uh removes a lot of the ambiguity from the whole question of like is it happening to what

degree it's happening you know their conclusion is it's absolutely happening at a pro prolific rate uh this this

consumption of of of salmon and by these pinnipeds so so something's got to be done they're taking some of this uh

these actions on you know on the Canada side with the First Nations and and uh we we' just got to stay involved and

keep pushing pushing the uh the message forward that this is about this isn't just about whacking cute cuddly Critters

it's about ecosystem management and being being good stewards of the resources which which we're we're not

doing and and Puget Sound is notorious for not doing that very well um and I think there's a there's a fit within the

general public for that message but it's got to get out there in that way so um

thanks for the thanks for the question it's it's one that's really really uh important one to to ask and to stay

on um all right so let me move on from this and let's talk let's talk Cole

let's talk Cole so 2023 particularly if you were resi coo fishing was was

ridiculous right I talked about that a little bit earlier um that was one of the best resi coo Seasons most people

can ever remember it was it was not even a question uh when you went out fishing for those Critters and and hopefully

we'll have a another robust season don't know if it'll be that good that was pretty crazy but uh the the the fall

return was also uh pretty good in some areas and you know I'm I'm excited by

what's coming up but let's look at 2023 real quick you know we had some trouble in the far north and the far south um

but in the middle it was it was solid right between um you know what was going on looks like uh the middle green

bubbles like Washington uh scet was decent SN homish was decent still guish

was decent um so we so we had some bright spots in our in our Co less less

so in the Nali and pup uh area but check out check out 2024 uh coo forecast here uh

we are expected to have over 700,000 combined Hatchery and natural origin coo

return to P Town there's a lot of green in this map then Nali pup like

Washington uh St homish um and and uh

what you wait till you see the numbers on the scet which I'll show here as well incredible numbers there expected so I'm

thinking you know you know a lot of the Fisheries they start around the oil

docks right these fish come in from the from Admiral the inlet and they they crash into the beach there and decide

whether to go north and south which is why that's such a great place to fish is you know these these these fish don't

know where they're going yet until they kind of hit that terminal point so you know you fish the oil docks Richmond

Beach all this stuff there's usually fish there uh but you'll be able to get them North uh you'll be able to get them

on possession you'll be able to get them at a shipwreck uh I don't know if um 8182 will be open for coo hopefully it

will but but you'll be able to get him South on Jeff head and and shil show and all these popular places for Co and if

if the South Sound Co turns out you know you hopefully you'll be able to get him in 11 as well so uh you know the COO

obviously are are a hugely important part of our Puget toown fishery and and uh we're you know uh there's a lot less

drama in coo Seasons compared to uh what we deal with with shinook and so there's

a lot of excitement here uh work time on the water people getting these tasty coo

uh caught and in the boat going home so just a little historical reference

though you can see the 50-year graph here um you know we hit some real coo

lows in 2015 that we're still you know we're bouncing back from but but this has been a good this has been a good

last few years for Co and you know I remember you know six years ago or so the COO were a lot smaller on average

and you know this it's been it's been decent right decent sizes decent numbers

um it it's not as good as some of the historical abundances you could see here but uh if your reference was mid

2010s um you're pretty happy as a co- fisherman and you could see that a

little bit closer on the 10year as we zoom in just a little bit here right the last look at the last four years you

know it's been solid it's been good good good coo abundances and that's played out in the Fisheries um and and that's

been really really encouraging a huge part of our huge part of our Ptown fishery so let's look at the some of the

comparisons of individual stocks though and this is where I get excited I'm in the South Sound but uh my son's uh going

to college in the north sound so I have an excuse to go up and see them and I did a little bit of that last year I

fished the gadget for some coo it was it was incredible fishing and uh and look

at these numbers 63,000 natural origin uh Gadget fish

expected back you know that is that's exciting looking forward to getting in on that those are some beautiful fish

the fishing usually season is is long right it'll take you through through late fall um we have a lot of

opportunity guys will be able to run trips through a lot of the year um on that fishery and and and a lot of us

will be able to take part in that so that's exciting and that's just the natural origin side right if you look at

the uh the Hatchery side it'll load up here here we

go Hatchery side again uhget 27,000 fish

um back at the Hatchery um that's GNA be that's GNA be a lot of fun those fish

are fun to tangle with you know throwing I think I got a lot of them with eggs under a float almost every cast last

year on on one of those tributaries on the on the gadget um very very good fishing and uh you know but jig Spinners

all that really fun to get them that way too um so yeah good news on the coof

front stocks of concern for coo there is there there are some concerns you know

the straight of wuka rivers um consider rebuilt as of 2024 so that's exciting um

the sish had major issues going back to 2015 and they were considered rebuilt as of

2022 but uh you know we they're still cautious there making sure that you know

because a lot of these things are cyclical and when you get back around to the age class where it was where it was lower abundance and more difficult uh

that that return tends to be challenging so you got to kind of get through all that to make sure uh that that they really return in the numbers and I think

they're down slightly this year compared to last year but still in that rebuilt status from the lows of

2015 uh there is still this if you remember fall 2022 had really low water

higher stream temps uh on the coast in some of the Shahala trips and some of the Pug Town Rivers uh you know in that

late fall period there's concerned about how that how that may affect some of the

issues for Co but we'll see uh that's sort of just a concern level for Co but Mo there's mostly good news on the co

front can't really complain we'll do Chum next and then we'll finish with

Sakai uh here for for for Chum 20 23 in petown rivers was not good

uh it was not good although although uh the green continues to be strong River

it's not even on here with the bubble I'm not sure why it's not on here but the green was it continues to be

fantastic for for Chum and and hopefully that run is doing well because I'm not seeing information on it from what the

department list I I I should ask that question in later later meetings because

um I didn't notice I didn't catch this the first time first time it was out there um but yeah so so Chum not good

2023 and 2024 numbers uh look a little bit better

some of the North Sound Rivers still have some challenges with Chum but we're more uh steady on South mid sound rivers

and and maybe they're just including all those in the central South Sound 46,000 uh right that that number that's

up there and maybe that includes the green and they're not called out separately by by river uh I know the

squal and P have continued to have challenges we I don't think we've had a season on them for a little while so maybe that's where some of the issues

come from the Green's been the green continues to be a great great place for Chum in the

fall uh you could see historical historical rent size uh you know we had

some real lows around 2020 and we're coming back off of that uh you know in

terms of Puget town in general working our way back Chum Chum could take a really long time to rebuild their stock

so it's good that we seem to be on a good trajectory and reaching some of the

uh historical better better run sizes hopefully in in the future Chum some

people you know you don't eat a lot of chum but man are they fun to tangle with they're the second largest salmon that we get back after the shinook and

they're just they're just they're incredible they're incredibly easy to catch uh if you've never caught a Chum

never been Chum fishing look at some of the videos up on my uh on my um channel

on Chum fishing it's just the easiest fishery to get into uh jig a little bit

of shrimp under a float it's just it's just money and it's so so fun so much fun so uh and then let's look at all

right so the saky the Sakai thing is pretty cool uh you know saky has been

challenging in Lake Washington every year we talk about Lake Washington and there's more work going on to get some

plants in the Cedar River and things like that to try to rebuild rebuild this this run but the bright spot for Sakai

continues to be Baker Lake last year was was a great season for those who took part I I did not last year but know

people who are passionate about Baker Lake soccer ey and it was a really good season um and if you haven't heard about

20 this is maybe the best news of 2024 uh forecast although you know the

co folks maybe might say hold my beer uh 2024 sakke forecast Baker Lake

56750 fish uh that's the best that's the best ever um and that that should be an

absolutely incredible incredible time for uh for folks to take part in that um

Evergreen mountains asked does the Hatchery spawn all the COO fish returned you know I I think they spawn up to

their what it takes to fill up their egg Bank you know they can't they can't um uh they they I don't think they have

room to raise every single uh egg that they that they take so there's usually a c Surplus that they donate to food banks

and other things like that so uh so no I don't think all of them are H are are spawned at at the Hatchery but but they

they try to they they obviously going to spawn what they need to get their brute stock for their for the amount that they

can raise in that particular Hatchery so thanks for the question yeah so you've got you got good

numbers Baker Lake uh those numbers on uh the yaka and snake are better than

normal and the uh the Okanagan uh is steady and the wachi

97,000 fish I might do that wachi run this year I don't know I'm the problem is is there's so much going on in like

uh Late July August when these things are usually going off that I'm like man uh it's hard to get you know I'm usually

out somewhere chasing schnook around that's my passion uh it's hard for me to

re readjust everything for for a saky mindset but one of these days I'll definitely get out there and uh and I

like to do a lot of different Fisheries so I I should I should really make make that happen this year and go experience

some new stuff but I maybe maybe I get I'll get an invite to Baker Lake and someone who's already got campsite

reservations because if you don't already have them you it's all full it's all sold out so uh we'll see about that

uh see who I can who I can twist their arm and try to get get on a boat up there

um here's a little picture of the historical run size obviously super sad

dismal right uh we um the Baker Lake Side of the graph is climbing in more

recent years but you could see what the glory years of Lake Washington um that we just we just haven't had in a really

long time so uh I know a lot of folks are still bummed about that you hear from different people on the every north

of Falcon someone joins jumps on that's like you know I used to fish for saky my dad used to fish for saky uh in the 80s

you know like I mean it's something a lot of us have in our uh in our family history or or our own personal history

if you're uh if you're a little bit older remember those times so yeah uh

hopefully we can get something back but you got to take advantage of what's going on with Baker that's really good news there uh and then here's the tenure

so uh Lake Washington Baker combin and uh you know obviously Lake

Washington is a little bit lower hurting hurting that those numbers there so um

couple conclusions about environmental factors Smoltz entering the ocean

experienced good ocean conditions again it's that lenia situation that we've been in the the the threee lenia which

is a one in 90e event it's been really good uh we had we thought we were

shifting back to well we did shift back to El Nino we thought oh no that's gonna you know kind of make some of these

environments challenging for our salmon but we're we're supposed to uh transition to linia again this summer

which if you like a dry hot weather uh you might need to go to Arizona or

something for that because uh it's uh it's it's not going to be here um but that's that's good for that's good for

salmon so hopefully hopefully um those will continue and hopefully we'll get some Rebound in these critical stocks

while we have good ocean conditions you know I think one of the concerns everyone has is oh we're going to get

you know we're g to get um uh you know uh we've got these weak stocks and then

at some point the ocean conditions are going to turn against us and you're going to have that that double whammy of

weak stocks and difficult marine environment difficult conditions uh we haven't seen that yet hopefully uh we'll

have some better rebuilding from this uh this positive uh environment that we have right now before before the um the

eventual because all this is cyclical right but the problem is is the cyclical keeps taking us lower and lower on these

natural origin stocks and and we've got to get out of that got to deal with the seal and sealine problem habitat we

continue to lose habitat as well so you know that's hard to rebuild your natural stocks when they're getting mowed down

by seals and sea liines and your habitat uh loss continues even though we're rebuilding a lot of it so uh there's

right now there's there's good news in 2024 we get there's a 250,000 chinuk

coming back 700,000 Co coming back 50,000 Lake Baker Sakai coming back

there's going to be Chum in the Green River and other parts of of put town like there's there's going to a bunch of

places to fish for salmon we're going to get to fish for him may not get all the season stuff we want but we're going to

get to go salmon fishing the coast is going to be good you know the Columbia River I'll probably do a separate thing

on the Columbia River and the coast but you know just just briefly uh there's expected to be a decent number of

schnook and Co back so the the ocean Seasons should be solid as well um and

and you know if you looked at anything on my channel uh you saw that that was an absolute blast in 2023 doing that

Westport ocean uh fishery for Shook and Co was was almost was like going catching it was it was awesome so hope

hoping for more of that in 2024 as well and uh yeah that's uh let's see anything

else oh here we go um here's a graph that wfw showed that

really I think wrinkled some people they didn't like this graph because um what

what they're showing here is the catch per day for for uh some of our previous

years 20 2009 compared to you know to 2018 or 2016 and comparing that to

recent years and they're Shing hey we've got to give you shorter Seasons

because uh there's more people fishing each day and the problem with this is

like this is somewhat of a a chicken and egg problem because the reason why more people are fishing is because the

seasons are shorter and shorter and shorter um it is true that there's there's a lot of people participating in

these Fisheries uh we are good at catching fish in many ways right the

number of fish that are getting caught each year is is largely staying somewhat

somewhat constant although you know Marine Area 11 fit Anglers would say you know no don't don't give don't give me

that crap but uh so this this this graph was definitely aggravating the

department showed this and tried to show this as a challenge related to Future recreational opportunities because

reality is if we've got longer Seasons we spread things out there's more stuff open Catch per day should go down uh and

so this this is this was presented as as one of the challenges uh even with they did

acknowledge that the reason why these numbers have gone up is because uh is because of these shorter Seasons uh but

they've also tried to put it out there as as part of the message of of we also

you you all are catching fish much better than previous years and so so that creating a challenge for modeling

actual seasons of Maximum time on the water so uh again finish up the whole

recreational season setting considerations you know still go onook it's continue going to continue to limit

some of our Fisheries um one of the challenges and back and forth between folks is is Chinook directed Fisheries

versus time on the water so you know the more shook quota you eat up in the saltwater in the Marine areas the uh the

less potential time on the water you have to catch and release shinook while fishing for coo uh the less time you get

on the on the rivers to to have sport Fisheries you know every year you see people uh frustrated by the lack of

seasons in the rivers and they go what what's going on you know and the only thing they see is is Gil Nets in the river and they get frustrated by that

they don't realize a lot of times that like uh before the it ever got to a river fishery you know Alaska took their

fish West Coast Vancouver Island took their fish our marine sport Fisheries

took those fish and now what's left is split between tribe and recreational River Harvest which a lot of times it's

going to tribal because because they have a you know the tree rights of the 50/50 split and they're making up for

all the fish that were caught uh in the Marine areas in sport fisheries and so it becomes a contentious issue but uh

you know the tribes are obviously going to uh exercise their rights but in terms

of political forces that are generally aligned with uh with recreational

Anglers uh there's a whole lot more alignment there with the tribes and there are some of the folks in this

space who are suing suing the state to stop raising Hatchery fish trying to draft conservation policies that make uh

you know removal of predators uh impossible um in Predator management and

some of the ecosystem management things that are that are happening in our state so um you know there's there's a lot of

unwarranted an osity there from from the wreck Community towards the tribes um

and the more educated you get on the process the more you understand what's going on the more you're like hey you

know I appreciate you guys all those fish you rais in the Nal Hatchery and the job that your biologists do and the

commitment to raising Hatchery fish that our our you know the tribal co-managers have they do a really really good job on

a lot of that stuff and they work together with us behind the scenes in a lot of ways that a lot of people don't

appreciate and don't understand so there's bad actors on all sides not going to disagree with that but there's

there's one of the things that you should be more aware of if you're not is how much good stuff is happening in that

space and how much alignment there is in our interest um to to go to be good

stewards of the resources and manage the ecosystem they've been doing it for hundreds of years uh and and and we have

not been doing a very good job of it so um all right enough of that get off that rant we're 45 minutes in and I think

this is the last slide I wanted to share so I will stick around for any other

questions and cover some other random stuff if you're if you're still interested in sticking around otherwise

we'll kind of wrap up the stream but um I was going to show I wanted to show something here on um what is this here

oh so if you want to know how the Blackmouth fishing is doing um you know

I've got the cre reports a lot of them have been updated on uh wfw site and of

course you know they're updated on p&w best life as well on the on the Marine

area you know 10 11 schnook pages that are on the site but here's here's what's

come up for the last two days right it was open Friday and Saturday and uh pretty brutal South

Winds both days that I think made fishing more challenging although some people you know were really on it and

got their fish um but you could see you know Marine area 10 started out pretty

pretty decent you know this is this is a fish for every four Anglers um that's

that's like a summer number um you know so that's a really good number and but

then you go to Saturday yesterday and it dropped down probably closer to looks like about one in 10 and that's more of

your typical Blackmouth um success rate you know especially after some of the

bitey fish get uh get pulled on the first day this this obviously is just the cre sample this isn't the real

number numbers you know probably two or three times this if you're trying to estimate total

fish caught but um but this is you get enough ask enough people and this is usually fairly representative of the

catch per per unit of effort that you can um I get an idea how good was the fishing so I've done a lot of my own

comparisons and the cre numbers generally match with you know with uh

the network about how good the fishing was so that's Marine area 10 you look at Marine Area 11 and

and uh it's a little different there's there was more people cre Marin are 11

um and the fishing was uh you know it was it was not as good so on opening day

uh it looks like around uh shoot if I decimate that might be one and nine and

in uh and yesterday there were a little bit more fish but a little more people and again probably about one and 10 one

one legal schnook for for 10 Anglers now the the positive thing is from the people I've talked to and the things

I've heard is that no one is really encountering very many sublegal so that whole sublegal encounter thing is um

hopefully not going to come into play and the season will get through March and maybe even into April which is what

a lot of people are hoping for but um you know the uh as long as we have these sublegal quotas that that's always going

to be a factor of concern and but so far it seems like people aren't um people aren't encountering a lot of I talked to

several people people yesterday that were fishing you know near clay banks near Owens Beach point to find they

didn't hook a single fish the entire time much less any sublegal so uh you

know that that's that's not great that people had struggled to catch fish but uh if you're hoping for more time in the

water um it's a good thing that people aren't catching those those subal and

and we should be able to get those Seasons so I'm I'll probably be out there in uh 10 uh or 11 I don't know I'm

where I'm going to go yet but I'll be I'll be somewhere on Wednesday I think um and try to take part in this for for

a little bit more get a little bit more fishing in you know knock all the rust off the downrigger the boat all that

stuff and and uh and try to get some more shots at them of course we also have all the Southwest Washington

skilled stuff going on I'm definitely not done doing that that's still a lot of fun there's a smelt dip coming up on

Tuesday if you've never dipped smelt uh check out my uh blog uh article on that

that's worth uh worth I've already got my 20 PBS from the last um it's 10 per person but my wife was with me so we got

20 pounds and I got my fill of cleaning smelt so uh that was that's all the smelt I need H but they're fantastic

fish really good mild flavor lot of oils like I mean they're really tasty really

tasty Critters um I like to have a lot of variety in my freezer um we don't want to just just only have like salmon

and steeled so jump at the opportunity to get some smell if you can then of

course the other thing that might distract us I also have a Blog article on this is the 2024 ocean bottom fishing

season you guys realize it it's this Saturday it opens March 9th uh that's

going to open in the Marine areas for lingcod Mariner 2 one three uh four is

open four four east of tattoo is open year round for for Rockfish but link cod's going to open so uh my thing with

that is it's all about weather Windows uh got to be smart out there going over these bars going out venturing out um

especially with March March can throw some pretty volatile weather at us as we've seen but uh if you get a good weather window jump on that early and

often those quality Lings they get picked off those Rock piles you know by by June there's not as many of them of

of that quality around so it's definitely I like to get out there early and pick up a few 20s couple years ago I

got a 38 pounder in Marine area four that was awesome awesome fish but um

that's that's exciting if we get a weather window I'll probably be out Westport uh doing that um a few times so

uh all right well no other questions here and uh we'll we'll close the stream down uh if you're watching this later on

feel free to drop a comment and let me know if you liked it and I'll try to get word out more in the future about

scheduling one of these if you want we'll I'd love to talk more North the Falcon more salmon season process and

just other fishery topics um as uh as we're going here and I'll I'll try to get more notice out there if you want to

attend live but definitely let me know if you if you want to be part of uh the live stream in the future and be able to

have some Q&A type of discussion uh please drop me a comment let me know so I can uh I can give it the priority uh

that you put on it uh as I'm here I'm here for you help you be more successful

catching fish harvesting shellfish whatever you're trying to do and uh you

know get that awesome PMW food uh straight from the stores fresh and

sustainable Harvest of all of all that wonderful wonderful food so uh we hope

hope to see you out there stay safe take

care