INCREASINGLY CROWDED CONDITIONS in and along West End rivers and banks are another challenge to the recovery of wild steelhead stocks.
Forks is well known for its Old-Fashioned Fourth of July Parade, but there are other times when drift boat traffic on nearby rivers turns into a glorified piscatorial procession.
Peak wild steelhead season in February and March brings the most anglers to the rivers.
“There will be like 30 boats all in a line from the hatchery drift [on the Sol Duc River] all the way to the Whitcomb-Dimmel [launch],” said Jerry Wright of Jerry’s Bait and Tackle (360-457-1308) in Port Angeles.
It’s not just boat-bound anglers flocking to Forks.
“The rivers are pretty slammed in February and March,” said Mike Zavadlov of Mike Z’s Guide Service (360-640-8109 or Mike@mikezsguideservice.com.
“You go down the Hoh in early March and it’s really busy.
“You go gear fishing and you feel like an outlier — everybody is casting flies.”
It’s not just the scenery attracting anglers — a fish management problem serves to draw visiting fishers.
Naturally spawned Puget Sound steelhead were listed as “threatened” under the federal Endangered Species Act by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in May of 2007.
The listing covers wild steelhead from river basins in Puget Sound, Hood Canal and the eastern half of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, including the Dungeness River.
Plants of Chambers Creek-reared hatchery steelhead smolts continued in many of those rivers and through 2013.
A lawsuit brought in March 2014 by the Duvall-based Wildfish Conservancy sought to block the release of these hatchery steelhead “without the evaluation and legal permission required under the Endangered Species Act.”
The state settled with the group within a month, agreeing to stock just one river, the Skykomish, with winter-run hatchery steelhead and also establishing a 12-year moratorium of such hatchery plants in the Skagit River system, the largest Puget Sound river system.
Last spring, the National Marine Fisheries Service found that putting the young steelhead into the Nooksack, North Fork Stillaguamish and Dungness Rivers “would not appreciably reduce the likelihood of survival and recovery” of wild fish.
But the service backtracked from that position in favor of drafting an environmental impact statement, and the Skykomish was again the only Puget Sound river stocked with winter-run hatchery steelhead.
With no plants for two years there will be few hatchery steelhead returning this year, and none coming during the 2016-17 fishing season.
The Wild Fish Conservancy again muddied the waters by filing a notice of an intent to sue NOAA for failing to complete and implement a recovery plan for Puget Sound steelhead.
This inability to act by the state, the federals and the rigid belief that hatchery steelhead are more of a problem than part of the solution by wild fish advocates are all driving more and more anglers to the West End.
“I started seeing that when they started shutting down the seasons on the Seattle-area streams 15 years ago,” Wright said.
“The past five years I’ve seen a big, big change. All the pressure came to us.”
Fishing regulations that close steelhead fishing at the end of January on those Puget Sound rivers also contribute to the crowds.
“If they can get the Skagit and Sauk [rivers] open that will help,” said Bob Kratzer of Anglers Guide Service (360-374-3148) in Forks.
“Unless the state starts getting those other fisheries going, you’ll see more guides and more anglers heading here, and the crowding issues might get worse.”
Kratzer understands the thinking of conservation groups in wanting to protect the Puget Sound streams, but believes such an approach isn’t the best for West End rivers.
“Those [Puget Sound] runs are all depressed,” Kratzer said.
“Some of these groups, that’s their greatest concern, they don’t want to see these [West End] rivers go the way of what’s happened in Puget Sound.
“But it’s kind of like comparing apples to bananas. Those rivers and our rivers are both wet and run downstream, but ours don’t go through golf courses, housing developments and past shopping centers and near four-lane highways.”
When those anglers come out west to fish, they are often fishing on guided trips.
Guides have more experience and can send anglers to productive holes, upping encounters with wild steelhead, which can stress the fish and potentially decrease reproductive productivity.
The North Coast Steelhead Advisory Group looked at proposals aimed at limiting fishing from floating devices on West End Rivers.
“We battled hard, hard, hard on that issue,” Kratzer, a member of the advisory group said.
“There were some who favored no floating devices above the salmon hatchery on the Sol Duc, the [U.S. Highway] 101 bridge on the Calawah and above the hatchery on the Bogachiel.”
Eventually, a proposal to prohibit fishing from floating devices on the Hoh River from Morgan’s Crossing to the Olympic National Park boundary was advanced and approved by the state’s Fish and Wildlife Commission earlier this month.
Even then, Kratzer objected to the rule.
“I didn’t vote for it because I didn’t feel comfortable making a rule without any scientific data to back it up,” Kratzer said.
“I think we need to have a full creel sample from Morgan’s Crossing all the way up to the park. We need to check the boats, check the number of bank anglers, then we’d have data and something to compare it to.
“If this rule creates more bank anglers on that stretch then we didn’t create a refuge, we just transferred the pressure and the impacts are the same.”
Another member of the advisory group, Beaver-based guide JD Love (360-640-2654), also is concerned about the uptick in anglers, guides and fish encounters.
“I think the crowding is a huge issue on our rivers,” Love said.
“They did do a small step, limiting the fishing from boats on the Hoh.
“But I’m not sure there’s a regulation that we can do to really address the crowding.”
Plenty of Canal crab
State shellfish managers are extending the sport crabbing season in Marine Area 12 (Hood Canal) and a portion of Marine Area 9 (Admiralty Inlet) until Feb. 28.
All other Puget Sound marine areas will close at 5 p.m. on Dec. 31, as scheduled.
The only portion of Admiralty Inlet that will remain open until Feb. 28 is the area north of the Hood Canal Bridge to Foulweather Bluff to the Olele Point line north of Port Ludlow.
The department is extending the sport crab fishery in Hood Canal and a portion of Admiralty Inlet because there are plenty of crabs remaining in those areas, said Rich Childers, shellfish policy lead for Fish and Wildlife.
“We’re seeing a lot of crab, especially in the northern section of Hood Canal,” Childers said.
Coyote year-round
Coyotes are an animal that hunters with small- or big-game licenses can target year-round.
“One thing of interest to hunters might be that the male coyotes are already starting their territorial mating howls in our local area,” said Ward Norden, owner of Snapper Tackle Company and a former fishery biologist who lives in Quilcene.
“Seems a bit early to me.
“Those interested in hunting varmints might consider adding a submissive female coyote howl to their call list along with the usual cottontail [rabbit] distress calls.
“The coyotes I have seen lately have particularly beautiful pelts this year, so it is sad most of them have mange, making the hides worthless.”
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Outdoors columnist Michael Carman appears here Thursdays and Fridays. He can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5152 or at mcarman@peninsuladailynews.com.