BACK DURING MY vacation over the New Year’s holiday, which turned into much more of a staycation than I ever planned due to vehicle trouble, I received an email from Quilcene’s Ward Norden, a former fisheries biologist and owner of Snapper Tackle Company.
Negotiations for the 2017 summer/fall salmon seasons will begin soon.
Each year state, federal and tribal fishery managers gather to plan the Northwest’s recreational and commercial salmon fisheries. This series of meetings — involving representatives from federal, state and tribal governments and recreational and commercial fishing industries — is known as the North of Falcon process.
Coho better than expected
Norden gave me his salmon projections for last season well before any governing body came out with their own best guesses — and while state and tribal estimates painted a doom and gloom scenario for coho, Norden hit the nail on the head by correctly predicting the higher-than-expected numbers of coho that returned to West End and Puget Sound rivers and streams.
Not enough, apparently, to open up coho fishing in this area last year for the prime fall period, but those silver returns were of a good-enough size to open rivers like the Green/Duwamish, the Skagit, the Cascade and Snohomish as well as the Tulalip Bubble Fishery and portions of Marine Area 13 (South Puget Sound) to hatchery coho fisheries.
Funny how that worked out.
I thought I would start a multiple-column look at various summer/fall salmon return projections from the recreational, tribal and state by letting Norden lay down what he thinks anglers will see this year.
Norden discussed his 2017 projections as guest speaker at the East Jefferson Chapter of Puget Sound Anglers’ December meeting in Port Townsend.
“I prefaced my remarks by noting that marine recreational fisheries are managed for political expediency and political agendas, not often by the numbers of fish there or who paid to raise them in hatcheries,let alone for sustainability,” Norden said.
Point given.
Norden started with salmon royalty, the kings.
Chinook projection
“Inshore (inside Pillar Point) chinook numbers will be normal to slightly above last year’s numbers since our local chinook are relatively unaffected by ocean conditions,” Norden said.
“Offshore is a different story, and this years offshore blackmouth and kings were hit hard by ocean plankton (the base of the food chain) collapses for almost 18 months ending a year ago.”
Norden warns that anglers looking for kings off Pacific Ocean (or nearby) ports like Neah Bay, La Push or Westport may run into trouble this summer “since the vast majority of those chinook come from the Columbia plus Snake Rivers.”
“It could get ugly in the Columbia River this year for the runs dominated by chinook under 25 pounds,” Norden said.
Pink numbers down?
Pinks school up and run during odd-numbered years, so 2017 should provide some opportunity to target (intentionally or unintentionally) a horde of these active, easy-to-catch salmon.
I can envision catching limits on warm summer days along the kelp line near Freshwater Bay right now. That’s a happy place to be.
But Norden is not bullish on strong pink numbers this season.
“Historically, odd-numbered years are great for pink (lovingly known as humpies) salmon,” Norden said.
“Odd numbered years have featured five record or near record runs since 1999.”
While waiting in line at the Mukilteo ferry while out conducting business, Norden witnessed what he describes as “the near extermination by purse seine fisheries of pink salmon headed into rivers like the Snohomish and Stillaguamish Rivers in 2015 in front of hundreds if not thousands of horrified witnesses.”
“Pink salmon will be barely a shadow of what they once were in Marine Areas 8 [Deception Pass, Hope Island, Skagit Bay] and 9 [Admiralty Inlet] for many years.
“This is a catastrophic event for the marine recreational fishing industry that will have permanent repercussions.”
With anglers looking at an 0-2 count, Norden believes there is some good news.
“The 2017 coho salmon run into the Straits and Puget Sound will likely be one of the best in the last 25 years due to extraordinarily good ocean plankton growing conditions last summer,” Norden said.
“There will be three to four times as many coho as finally returned last fall.
He believes the potential exists for an amazing summer of coho fishing if the state Department of Fish and Wildlife provides a commeasurate season.
“The unknown factor that could make this year’s coho return numbers even larger will be the effect of the authorized extermination of pink salmon which compete with both sockeye and coho for plankton on the feeding grounds,” Norden said.
Last, Norden thinks sockeye numbers will improve with this year’s run.
“This is a ‘shout out’ to my friends among the Makah tribe in Neah Bay whose bread-and-butter fish are sockeye,” Norden said.
“Things are looking pretty good for an exciting commercial fishery for sockeye over the next couple summers.
“Enjoy the sockeye until the chinook begin their big recovery beginning the winter of 2018-2019.”
