You need to know about the big changes to the 2021-2022 Washington coast steelhead recently announced by WDFW.

The regulations for the Washington Coast Steelhead in 2022 has been announced by WDFW

We now know exactly what the rules are going to be for the steelhead in 2022 on the Washington coast. I wish it was good news, but it’s along the lines that we’ve feared.

Most of the hatchery steelhead opportunities have been closed to protect struggling wild steelhead stocks. Here’s the official WDFW weblink for more information.

Highlights (lowlights?) of the rule change that came from the WDFW email

State, tribal co-managers announce conservation-minded approach to coastal steelhead season amid expectations of lowest on-record returns

Seasons include full closures of tribal and sport steelhead fisheries on Chehalis and Humptulips rivers Dec. 1 to April 30 and restricted fisheries in other coastal rivers

OLYMPIA – Amid forecasts for low returns, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) and tribal co-managers at the Hoh Tribe, Quileute Tribe, and Quinault Indian Nation, today announced restrictions to sport and tribal fishing on Washington coastal rivers. These measures are aimed to protect wild steelhead populations, provide sport fishing opportunity where possible, and support tribal treaty rights.

In effect from Dec. 1, 2021 through April 30, 2022, state-managed steelhead sport fisheries will close in the Quinault and Queets rivers and their tributaries. During this time, both tribal and state fisheries will close in the Chehalis River and its tributaries as well as the Humptulips River. Steelhead fishing in Willapa Bay rivers and the Quillayute and Hoh rivers will allow catch and release of unmarked steelhead and harvest of two hatchery steelhead. Fishing from a boat will not be permitted except on the mainstem of the Quillayute River below Highway 101 bridges on the Calawah and Bogachiel rivers.

The biggest complaint and issue I’ve heard from other sport anglers is regarding why hatchery terminal areas were not opened on some of the Chehalis River tributaries. The best explanation I can provide is one that you kind of have to read between the lines.

Even though there is virtually zero risk to wild steelhead in these terminal areas, because the tribes have closed their season on the lower river where non-selective gear is used (gill netting cannot discriminate between hatchery and wild steelhead), sport anglers are not allowed to fish selectively on hatchery fish.

You might say that’s unfair…and there certainly is an aspect of unfairness here…but I can see the tribes perspective as well in this:

Until the non-tribals showed up and built dams to block spawning habitat, destroyed prime spawning habitat through logging, wrote and enforced laws to protect over predation by pinnipeds to throw ecosystems out of balance, over-harvested food fish in the ocean including significant bycatch and polluted the environment with our wonderful “progress”, these non-selective methods didn’t impact the steelhead population numbers enough to worry.

You could counter-argue that the past is the past and we are never going back, so let’s ban gill nets as they currently do significant damage to wild steelhead populations.

Everyone has their side, but the treaties we’ve signed and the negotiations with tribal nations are what they are. The outcome sucks. I want to fish as bad as the next angler, but I’m also not going to go on a one-sided rant here. This is not your modern-day news site that writes stories just to get your emotions all involved.

There are a few places to fish for steelhead still, but I’m not going to name those rivers as they will already have significant pressure on them (being the only game in town left). You’re gonna have to read the regs yourself and figure it out.

Hopefully, I will get out as well and have some reports and pics to share.

Feel free to look at the below blog post that was released before we knew for certain what the rules would be as it provides good context on where things stand.

Pre-announcement coverage of upcoming changes

The entire 50-page slide pdf should be up on the WDFW site that was shared at a recent town hall meeting in October 2021 hosted by WDFW, but this blog post will cover a few of the slides and cover what we think are the highlights.

As you can see from the above schedule, there’s a meeting aimed for November still to complete pre-season planning, and we should have our winter rules announced by December 1st.

What’s represented in these slides is going to anger many people for a variety of reasons. Personally, I feel for the coastal communities and fishing guides who will be heavily impacted as a result of the likely enacted policies that this slide deck feels like a warmup for.

The fact that we have such declining runs of wild steelhead in one of the last bastions of lower-48 wild steelhead regions is incredibly alarming, but sadly somewhat predictable if you’ve been paying attention.

The fact that there doesn’t appear to be viable options to preserve wild steelhead while leveraging hatchery steelhead to create angling opportunities is an additional and some would say most angering dynamic.

Let’s start the way the presentation did with a review of the 2020-2021 season.

Review of the 2020-2021 Washington Coastal Steelhead Season

You can clearly draw a trend line in the above graph that shows a largely lower abundance of wild steelhead and a downward trajectory for the 7 coastal systems being tracked. The next graph shows it more clearly though.

The 2020-2021 run size for Washington Coast wild steelhead is the lowest on record and may even go lower before a hopeful bounce back due to better ocean conditions is fully realized.

Throughout the WDFW presentation, the Chehalis River got the specific spotlight multiple times in slides like the above.

Why did the Chehalis River continue to get spotlighted throughout the presentation? The Chehalis is the largest coastal river system in the region being tracked and is #2 in terms of wild steelhead escapement goals, but is #1 in the number of steelhead off from the escapement goals.

Also, you will see by the end of the post, that WDFW may be preparing to drop a bomb on us regarding the Chehalis river system.

As you can see, 2020-2021 was not a good return year with 5 of the 7 Washington coastal rivers missing their steelhead escapement goals, despite the bait ban and not being able to fish from a floating device.

Does anything in the above summary say “Let’s catch some steelhead on the WA Coast in 2022?” Does it? Cause I don’t think it does.

I think it’s pointing to a bunch of awful decisions that are about to be made, and this is just the warm-up act to give anglers and vocal advocates as much early notice as possible.

But hey, let’s move on to 2022 and see what kind of unpleasant surprises can be found in those slides.

Washington Coast Steelhead Season Preview 2021-2022

So here we are again…2021-2022 is projected to be a slight improvement over 2020-2021, but still extremely low historically. Also, the same 5 of 7 rivers are projected to miss the escapement goal….And given the context and preceding bits of the presentation, expect draconian regulations on those 5 river systems…

Also, given the principle of effort shift impacting remaining rivers, expect the Hoh and Quillayute to also get sucked into the more negative return river regulation approaches too.

And here’s the big question…Will the Chehalis River be open at all in 2022 for steelhead fishing?

Why is that such a big question?

Most of the hatchery steelhead returning on the coast…fish we can catch, bonk, and eat, are bound for the Chehalis. I’m talking about the Wynoochie, Satsop, and especially the Skookumchuck River.

The Skookumchuck has a good to great return of hatchery fish most years, and most of the angling opportunity is in the last mile or so of the river before the dam…You know, those big concrete structures that block fish passage?!

In years past, the Skookumchuck has been closed whenever the Chehalis River system is closed for wild steelhead abundance concerns.

How many wild fish are being saved by closing the Skookumchuck terminal fishery? I would argue it’s zero.

So why would this river be closed in 2022?

Let’s continue…

Here’s the 4 management options being proposed by WDFW and prior to discussions with co-managers.

Let’s just remove #4 from the table…no way this is going to be the status quo. No way, no how.

Given the forecast that is so similar to last year and last year’s escapement is largely viewed as a failure (5 of 7 rivers not achieving goals), let’s also remove #2 as an option.

Take a look at the last non-Q&A slide in the deck, and draw your own conclusions…

Notice the Chehalis and the 4 red boxes. In general, this has been an informative slide deck, but this last slide is not super clear (perhaps by design?).

What do these red boxes mean? (Yes I know it has a legend that says it’s closed to fishing) Is this what’s actually being proposed on a system-by-system basis?

Does green/white indicate what’s actually being discussed still?

Stay tuned, we will be keeping track of this one, time permitting. One last question:

How is steelhead fishing in Oregon?