Page 3 of 9 FirstFirst 1234567 ... LastLast
Results 21 to 30 of 89

Thread: Should you be able to fish for downstreamers ?

  1. #21
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    Reno, nv
    Posts
    571

    Default

    A dead steelhead can't spawn. 300 dead steelhead can't spawn. 1,000 dead steelhead can't spawn. Every fish that is bonked can't spawn. However, a released steelhead can be caught again, and maybe even a third or fourth time, and still survive to spawn. A released steelhead enhances the fishery and has the potential to ensure future generations of wild steelhead. A dead one does neither. The logic, and the facts, don't get any simpler than that.

  2. #22
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    Sutter Co and the KMP
    Posts
    274

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by bigtj
    The logic, and the facts, don't get any simpler than that.
    I think this statement is illustrative of the problem you seem to be having with Lee's statements. It's a lack of understanding of the mechanics and dynamics involved. Steelhead population abundance and how abundance is created and maintained isn't simple nor necessarily intuitively logical. Nor does it follow the same trends as trout in inland fisheries. Unless a population is reduced to the point where extirpation is distinctly possible in the near future, the point you seem to be trying to make about C&R is mute (IMO) as far as abundance is concerned. I can't explain to you why I think your wrong in a single post, nor is there one definitive work that's online that you could read to bring you up to speed. This one is mainly about management practices and how future management practices should be altered based on past mistakes and what can be done from a fisheries management standpoint to help improve salmonid abundance.

    I'd encourage you(or anyone else for that matter that wants to take some steps to educate themselves on the nature of anadramous fisheries, how they're managed, how they've been mismanaged and how the dynamics of anadramous fish populations work) to read this book. There's no doubt, you'll learn something, and you may also come away with at least a tad bit more respect for the insight of those ill informed biologists that as you so eloquently put it: "...are often making their best "educated guess" based on limited data... and are more often wrong than they are right. " Fisheries biology may not be a perfectly exact science, but it's certainly not the "witch-doctor" faux-scientific endeavor that you seem to be under the impression it is.

    http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309053250
    Upstream: Salmon and Society in the Pacific Northwest

  3. #23
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    Tracy, CA
    Posts
    3,341

    Default

    Have really enjoyed all the points everyone's made. A lot of food for thought and seems to me everyone has made valid points, although I'm not as knowledgeable about these matters as everyone else here. A little heated, though. I don't believe it was ever Lee's intent to demean anyone in particular and I didn't read his posts that way either. From what I've known of Lee for several years now here and elsewhere, I know that's just not his way. Peace.
    -- Mike

    Chuck Norris has already been to Mars; that's why there are no signs of life.

  4. #24
    Join Date
    Jul 2006
    Location
    Petaluma Ca
    Posts
    686

    Default

    Thank God for the mysteries of fish (ing?)
    If favor of the logic of dead fish don't spawn....right on. The other side of that coin seems to be that nature WILL fill her steelhead water with steelhead. Again, no written stuff, but when Mount St. Helens erupted in "81, the Toutle river in Wa was essentially boiled clean and then ran with the consistiency of wet concrete for several years. Enough to destroy any steelhead for several consecutive seasons. Before we left the state in "91, the river was "rebounding" and wild fish were again being targeted and caught in the watershed. Nature must logically provide "strays" for varying purposes, this being one of them (?).
    I do believe we ALL want to see prolonged anadromous fisheries to be avaliable to us and our kids. Yeah, MAYBE "wasting time" was a bit harsh, but if we keep letting them sell us ineffective "bandaids" we WILL allow them to exterminate our fisheries. I think they have used science and biology to sell us many of these bandaids.
    The anhialation of the Toutle R. that St Helens did, could absolutely not be replicated by all of you's and all of me's, no matter how hard we tried.....especially with a stick and a string and a wad of feathers. And nature overcame that when the necessary envirioment returned. And, as of when we left that state in "91, the Wa. F&G had still not taken advantage of the opportunity to either legislatively protect nor study an almost "pure" fishery restoration.
    I admit to being of the "old" school. Hell, I can't understand half of the big words you all toss about as science. All we got is what we DO see. And while papers get writ, water (envirioment) gets stole. Some old farts still believe that to get more fish, we GOTTA get more water....not temporarily more fish. Got no paperwork on this either, but ya can put only so many marbles in a glass of water. Ya want more marbles, ya need a bigger glass.
    Sonoma Co. Water Agency has just made water conservation mandatory in Sonoma Co. for the water users. Wanna guess how much conservation the county will abide to when issueing new dwelling permits during the same time?
    The only useful water to a politician is water in a pipe. I see no reason for them to return us any water. I see that to also be an ecconomic impossibility. Maybe the only way to get more water for our fish is to get the FISH to more water. Why not force (mandate? (big political word)) them to build workable plungepool fish ladders on ALL of our damns before allowing ANY of the new ones they will try to shove down our throats?
    Hell, let's go fishing. There were NEW fish in the Russian last week and the shad are SOON due. Careful though, we did pester a spent steelie in June last year while in the persuit of shad.

  5. #25
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    Reno, nv
    Posts
    571

    Default

    Ycflyfisher,

    Thanks for the information. I think it's funny you say I am wrong (and it would take you too long to say why), or perhaps I don't have much information about anadramous fisheries. For what it's worth, I am a environmental engineer/hydrogeologist with a Master's degree and a consultant with 9 years of expereince in the "real world". I deal mostly with groundwater, but my best friend is a leading expert on anadramous fisheries restoration for HDR/fish Pro. We've had hundreds of conversations on the subject over the past 15 years. I understand that many of the decisions I make in groundwater systems are limited by tremendous uncertainty. The inherent nature of groundwater is similar to fisheries management in that point sampling is used to interpolate and extrapolate systems dynamics into the future without always having a real handle on many diverse factors including ocean survival and predation. In other words, the models used to estimate populations and population dynamics are ALWAYS wrong, to some degree, it's just that some may be useful, and some may not. There are numerous examples where models have reasonably predicted population trends, models that have been just plain wrong, but none of them are "right on". Ultimately it's up to the judgement of an individual or group of scientests to make a call in the end, and we all know that decsions can sometimes be flawed and in some cases little more than a W.A.G. I don't think fisheries biology is a dark science or whatever you call it, I just have a handle on the fact that science applied to natural systems can have a lot of uncertainty. It's usually the "newbie" consultant/scientist fresh out of college that doesn't undertand their ideas aren't always right. Experience over time teaches the scientist humility and to understand they don't always have a handle on uncertainty. When large uncertainty exists, as in anadramous fisheries runs that are very difficult to accurately predict (see how well the Alaska F&G has done on sockeye runs some time...some times they're dead on, sometimes dead wrong) the best approach ususally is a conservative one, a "watch and see" approach combined with a much monitoring as possible. I don't know a single experienced consultant that wouldn't agree with me on that. Well I guess you're entitled to your opinion, but to say I'm wrong, outright, without knowing anything about my background or the information I have acquired, ignores the fact that nobody has all the answers, as you have so eloquently pointed out throughout your posts. Let's agree to disagree.

    Bottom line is the biologists/regulators in charge agree with me, not you, with regards to C&R in a majority of western rivers. Catch and kill for wild steelhead is now only allowed in perhaps a dozen watersheds from N. California to BC. Off the top of my head that would include the Smith, a few select rivers in S. Oregon, and the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, a few more I've probably forgotten but not many. Despite the catch and kill regs ALL of the fly-fishing guides I personally know, and a few of the "bait" guides voluntarily practice catch and release. These moves has been made, whether it be to protect current populations or help restoration in the future. The move in general has been to C&R regs in all but the healthiest watersheds, and in some cases (like the Umpqua and the Olympic Peninsula) continuing to allow catch and kill for wild fish has created a big stir in the angling community, and a groundswell of public opinion that is fighting agains these catch and kill regs. For practical purposes, the fact that catch and kill for wild steelhead is no longer allowed in most rivers, and the opinion by fish and game biologists and regulators that have led to these regulations, is all that really matters, regardless of our opinons on the subject.

    Lee,

    Thanks for the lighthearted post, good points made I agree let's go fishing.

  6. #26
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    Sutter Co and the KMP
    Posts
    274

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by bigtj
    Ycflyfisher,

    Thanks for the information. I think it's funny you say I am wrong (and it would take you too long to say why), or perhaps I don't have much information about anadramous fisheries. For what it's worth, I am a environmental engineer/hydrogeologist with a Master's degree and a consultant with 9 years of expereince in the "real world". I deal mostly with groundwater, but my best friend is a leading expert on anadramous fisheries restoration for HDR/fish Pro. We've had hundreds of conversations on the subject over the past 15 years. I understand that many of the decisions I make in groundwater systems are limited by tremendous uncertainty. The inherent nature of groundwater is similar to fisheries management in that point sampling is used to interpolate and extrapolate systems dynamics into the future without always having a real handle on many diverse factors including ocean survival and predation. In other words, the models used to estimate populations and population dynamics are ALWAYS wrong, to some degree, it's just that some may be useful, and some may not. There are numerous examples where models have reasonably predicted population trends, models that have been just plain wrong, but none of them are "right on". Ultimately it's up to the judgement of an individual or group of scientests to make a call in the end, and we all know that decsions can sometimes be flawed and in some cases little more than a W.A.G. I don't think fisheries biology is a dark science or whatever you call it, I just have a handle on the fact that science applied to natural systems can have a lot of uncertainty. It's usually the "newbie" consultant/scientist fresh out of college that doesn't undertand their ideas aren't always right. Experience over time teaches the scientist humility and to understand they don't always have a handle on uncertainty. When large uncertainty exists, as in anadramous fisheries runs that are very difficult to accurately predict (see how well the Alaska F&G has done on sockeye runs some time...some times they're dead on, sometimes dead wrong) the best approach ususally is a conservative one, a "watch and see" approach combined with a much monitoring as possible. I don't know a single experienced consultant that wouldn't agree with me on that. Well I guess you're entitled to your opinion, but to say I'm wrong, outright, without knowing anything about my background or the information I have acquired, ignores the fact that nobody has all the answers, as you have so eloquently pointed out throughout your posts. Let's agree to disagree.

    Bottom line is the biologists/regulators in charge agree with me, not you, with regards to C&R in a majority of western rivers. Catch and kill for wild steelhead is now only allowed in perhaps a dozen watersheds from N. California to BC. Off the top of my head that would include the Smith, a few select rivers in S. Oregon, and the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, a few more I've probably forgotten but not many. Despite the catch and kill regs ALL of the fly-fishing guides I personally know, and a few of the "bait" guides voluntarily practice catch and release. These moves has been made, whether it be to protect current populations or help restoration in the future. The move in general has been to C&R regs in all but the healthiest watersheds, and in some cases (like the Umpqua and the Olympic Peninsula) continuing to allow catch and kill for wild fish has created a big stir in the angling community, and a groundswell of public opinion that is fighting agains these catch and kill regs. For practical purposes, the fact that catch and kill for wild steelhead is no longer allowed in most rivers, and the opinion by fish and game biologists and regulators that have led to these regulations, is all that really matters, regardless of our opinons on the subject.

    Lee,

    Thanks for the lighthearted post, good points made I agree let's go fishing.
    Bigtj,

    After reading this and then rereading this, I can't see what point if any, you're attempting to make here. You can't understand why I think you're ill informed, despite the fact that you've offered up nothing in this thread to indicate that you've even got a rudimentary understanding about the mechanics of population abundance. I'm also not seeing how the dissertation of your own personal engineering expertise is at all relevant to this discussion, or somehow demonstrates that my perception of where you're coming from on this one is somehow misguided. This would be very much akin to my going to the engineering tips forum and and making some ridiculous statement about the soil remediation that may be necessary on underground infrastructure projects and when some one called me one it, I put forth a brilliant synopsis on the Ricker's Stock and Recruitement relationship and how escapement, is independant of that relationship, but escapement does have an indirect impact on abundance because it directly affects stock and therefore, I must be correct in my ridiculous remediation statements because Anadramous fisheries abundance is somehow very similar to In Situ remediation principles and shares some of the same "real world" methods of error propigation and analysis. Uh-huh. Would I have a valid arguement or would I just be blowing smoke?
    Don't you think my arguement might be better founded if instead of talking about fish, when questioned that I might be better off going the route of demonstrating that I'm well aware of the uncertainty of encountering groundwater, regardless of what the pilot drillings may have told you to expect when doing a 40 foot open trench excavation to bury a miles long, new 84" PCC interceptor pipe. And that making certain the HAZWOPER crews are ready to mobilize when said interceptor is being placed in close proximity to the old fuel storage facility on a defunct tactical supply airbase might be a good idea? Or would maybe a talk about how lifehistory frequency distribution is likely dependant upon gradient and available substrate size be enough? I'm sorry man, but your expertise that you obviously have in one subject does not make you know what you're talking about on a completely different subject, regardless of what you may wanna believe it does.

    I do agree that you're right that we're simply going to need to agree to disagree. Thanks for the remedial on the uncertainties in encountering groundwater.

  7. #27
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    PNW
    Posts
    2,934

    Default

    Okay! That post made my eyes cross

    Carl, I have stayed out of this one but now I cant help but bring this thread back down to ground level with my "simple mind" opinion.

    I dont see anything wrong with closing fisheries for down run steelhead. We are at about that stage right now on the rogue, and the fishing pressure has let up considerably anyway. I dont think it would break anyones heart to close it. Or at least give it a 'fly only' window. I know the fish would still get pestered, but there wouldnt be any gut hooking going on.

    I dont know how anyone could think that C&R regulations have no favorable impact on a fishery. A dead fish is a dead fish.

    Jay

  8. #28
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    Sacramento
    Posts
    7,786

    Default C&R....

    Hi Jay,..... Hope I'm not mis-speaking for anyone else but I'm not sure that anyone felt that C&R had no favorable impact on fisheries.... My position (and I thought others, too) was and remains that C&R failed to restore Salmonid fisheries to historic levels but probably contributed keeping things from further degradation (even that's hard to show since so many other factors are involved in the decline of Salmonids/Stripers in California. IMHO, C&R is a valuable tool in managing what's left of our fisheries.

    I'm glad you spoke up since things were getting tense around here....
    "America is a country which produces citizens who will cross the ocean to fight for democracy but won't cross the street to vote."

    Author unknown

  9. #29
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    Reno, nv
    Posts
    571

    Default

    Guys,

    Sorry I belabored the point I made a bit. I've gone pretty far off topic. I'm passionate about catch and release. And I'm passionate about the future of steelhead. Fly-fishing for steelhead is far and away the most important part of my life besides family.

    Anyway I've said enough again apologies if I've gone over the top.

    Best regards,


    -John

  10. #30
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    PNW
    Posts
    2,934

    Default

    John

    I dont think you owe an apology. I always enjoy reading your knowledgable posts and believe you convey them as a gentleman.
    your knowledge for steelhead is only surpassed by your passion to catch them.
    Thanks for posting

    Jay

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •