For many outdoor enthusiast the holiday season is a great time to get outside and enjoy the beautiful Pacific Northwest. Children will soon be on holiday break, friends and relatives may be visiting from outside the area, whether it be spending time on the water fishing somewhere, taking a rip to the snow, or a cold morning in a duck blind, its a special time to get together and share our favorite passion.
This year our local area has been hit with catastrophic weather, extreme amounts of rain, flooding, windstorms, and in one area even a tornado. All of this has a devastating effect on our landscape. In some places that I frequent there is almost a post war feeling when you drive through it, homes are demolished, roads washed away, and entire hillsides are gone, it leaves you awestruck when you see what mother nature can do in less than a 24 hour time frame.
I know that for myself and many of you as well, this type of weather gives us "Cabin Fever", and we are itching to get out and make a few casts, clean up that favorite duck blind, or maybe just go for a drive, but let me remind you your favorite river is not the same familiar stream it was just a week ago. High water washes down a lot of debris, its not uncommon to see adult fir trees floating in the chocolaty mess, these trees can get hung up anywhere. Commonly called "sweepers". These trees can make navigating around them dangerous and in some cases nearly impossible, anytime I float a river after a high water, I ALWAYS treat it as if its my first time down it, I set out prepared for the worst, extra rope, an ax, anything to help in case you may need to port your boat around an obstacle, and of course as always, LIFE VESTS!
We who live here in the PNW, have never let the weather slow us down, while it rains here in the lower elevations the snow is piling up in the mountains making for some fantastic skiing conditions, the extra flooding lands opens up more water fowl opportunities, in Copalis we are finally getting a razor clam dig for the 3 days over Christmas. If "Yule be outside" over this holiday season, please be safe, and if you plan on being in Copalis, save me a clam or two!
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Monday, June 22, 2015
What If? Can we really save our Hatchery steelhead......
More and more the debate over hatchery vs. wild steelhead is in the spotlight, currently a public meeting has been scheduled by the Washington department of Fish and Wildlife to discuss or maybe inform the public of some new policies about to be implemented on the Kalama River regarding hatchery summer run steelhead. The general information on these new policies has already been anounced to the public and for those of us who love this fishery its a blow right to the mid section yet from another stand point they make some sense. What if the solution to this debacle meant thinking outside the box...
In the state of Washington salmonoid are currently listed as a "food fish" making them legal to be commercially harvested. This is usually done by commercial trollers in the ocean where salmon are caught on hook and line to be sold commercially to seafood wholesalers where they end up in restaurants, super markets or in a can. In other places such as the Columbia River they are gill netted and their fate is the same as previously mentioned. While this commercial harvesting may not seem in best interest of anglers who are out to catch fish by hook and line, let me point out that some 100 years ago Washington State began building salmon hatcheries solely to supplement commercial fisheries.With that being said, in short no commercial fishery, no hatchery salmon.
Steelhead on the other hand are considered a sport fish, sinceit is believed they are more closely related to trout than salmonoid. Thus being placed in this category, it makes them illegal to be commercially harvested, therefore no reason for the state to raise them in hatcheries.
The states are struggling to manage what money they have ( though I believe the term mismanaged is more the norm than manage) so states are doing all they can to put money where they get the most in return. The commercial harvest of salmon is BIG MONEY, there are probably billions at stake, joint compact deals are made with adjoining states, countries, as well as tribes to divide up who gets what piece of the salmon pie. There is plenty at stake and plenty of reasons ($$$) to put more salmon into the pie, just 30 years ago small coastal towns were on the verge of turning off the lights due to the shrinking salmon seasons. Today those towns are booming.
So how do steelhead fit in to all of this? I know some of you are going to cringe and probably even accuse me of steelhead blasphemy but what if we took steelhead off the sportfish list and made it legal to commercially harvest them? PUT THE GUNS DOWN and think of this. If we commercially harvested steelhead, there would be big money in the raising of hatchery steelhead, groups like the Native Fish Society wouldnt be able to block the release of hatchery steelhead, they simply wouldnt have the finacial backing to go up against the huge commercial fishing machine. Hatcheries would be OBLIGATED to raise more hatchery steelhead rather than looking for any reason to not raise them. could you imagine winter steelhead return like last years coho retuen, probably not, but its not an impossibility.
Dont get me wrong I hold the same high esteem for steelhead that anyone reading this does, but our current progaram is not working. Some will say that there are streams that have great native steelhead fisheries but those are only working because in most cases there is zero retention, I happen to like to eat steelhead, yes eat them, a fresh summer run steelhead is one of the best table fare there is, and incredibly healthy for you at the same time. I dont expect steelhead to ever be listed as a food fish, I'm just asking you to think outside the box and imagine the possibilities if they were.
In the state of Washington salmonoid are currently listed as a "food fish" making them legal to be commercially harvested. This is usually done by commercial trollers in the ocean where salmon are caught on hook and line to be sold commercially to seafood wholesalers where they end up in restaurants, super markets or in a can. In other places such as the Columbia River they are gill netted and their fate is the same as previously mentioned. While this commercial harvesting may not seem in best interest of anglers who are out to catch fish by hook and line, let me point out that some 100 years ago Washington State began building salmon hatcheries solely to supplement commercial fisheries.With that being said, in short no commercial fishery, no hatchery salmon.
Steelhead on the other hand are considered a sport fish, sinceit is believed they are more closely related to trout than salmonoid. Thus being placed in this category, it makes them illegal to be commercially harvested, therefore no reason for the state to raise them in hatcheries.
The states are struggling to manage what money they have ( though I believe the term mismanaged is more the norm than manage) so states are doing all they can to put money where they get the most in return. The commercial harvest of salmon is BIG MONEY, there are probably billions at stake, joint compact deals are made with adjoining states, countries, as well as tribes to divide up who gets what piece of the salmon pie. There is plenty at stake and plenty of reasons ($$$) to put more salmon into the pie, just 30 years ago small coastal towns were on the verge of turning off the lights due to the shrinking salmon seasons. Today those towns are booming.
So how do steelhead fit in to all of this? I know some of you are going to cringe and probably even accuse me of steelhead blasphemy but what if we took steelhead off the sportfish list and made it legal to commercially harvest them? PUT THE GUNS DOWN and think of this. If we commercially harvested steelhead, there would be big money in the raising of hatchery steelhead, groups like the Native Fish Society wouldnt be able to block the release of hatchery steelhead, they simply wouldnt have the finacial backing to go up against the huge commercial fishing machine. Hatcheries would be OBLIGATED to raise more hatchery steelhead rather than looking for any reason to not raise them. could you imagine winter steelhead return like last years coho retuen, probably not, but its not an impossibility.
Dont get me wrong I hold the same high esteem for steelhead that anyone reading this does, but our current progaram is not working. Some will say that there are streams that have great native steelhead fisheries but those are only working because in most cases there is zero retention, I happen to like to eat steelhead, yes eat them, a fresh summer run steelhead is one of the best table fare there is, and incredibly healthy for you at the same time. I dont expect steelhead to ever be listed as a food fish, I'm just asking you to think outside the box and imagine the possibilities if they were.
Sunday, May 31, 2015
Low/No water Summer Steelhead!!
It seems like just yesterday when we were in the middle of last years crazy coho season and we're already talking SUMMER RUN STEELHEAD!
This summers drought conditions are going to change things up a bit that's for sure, rivers like the Kalama are already near season low levels and its only May!
We are taking advantage of these low water conditions and are moving to the Cowlitz soon, with current flows at 3000 cfs (and dropping no doubt) this should be ideal levels for us drift boat anglers, and it will be exciting to fish some new water (off the Kalama) for the summer, and if the Cowlitz is anything like last summer it should provide for some very exciting days!
To book a trip with us you can always find us on the web at www.ErvigsOutfitters.com
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Are they really just rumors?
Recently my phone has been blowing up about the recent increase in daily bag limits of hatchery steelhead on the Kalama River that will come into effect March 1st. The reaction I'm getting from most everyone is the Kalama must be loaded with hatchery steelhead to support the increase, with anglers ready to book a trip and get out and fill the boat, unfortunately that is not the case.
Hatchery steelhead have really come into the spotlight over the past few years, with more emphasis on "saving" our wild gene stocks. I'm not really sure where I stand on this whole issue, as a guide I'm never in favor of less fish, in other words decrease, or in some cases, terminate the release of thousands of hatchery fish in an "attempt" to save a few so called wild fish, BUT, one of my favorite steelhead streams this time of year has no hatchery fish at all, its all about catching and releasing big wild fish.
Over the years I've heard many opinions and rumors about where our fisheries will be in the future, one such rumor now is there will be no more hatchery steelhead as of 2017, unless the river has or can implement a brood stock program, in other words hatchery fish that were live spawned from wild parents, and yet those of us who live to fish steelhead remember the thriving brood stock program on the Olympic Peninsula that was terminated without a justifiable reason, so who knows where the truth lies.
Hatchery steelhead in the state of Washington are in most cases a terminal fishery, in other words put there only to be harvested by anglers. To give anglers more advantage of harvesting hatchery steelhead some systems such as the Cowlitz River and the Kalama River have a recycle program, meaning when hatchery steelhead come back from the ocean to spawn, if they are not caught, or "harvested", when they reach the hatchery from where they were raised they are collected in a pen, loaded up into a truck, driven downstream and realeased to make another journey upstream past anglers attempting to catch them again. On the Kalama River if a fish is able to make the journey several time without ending up being tagged on a catch record card, they are again loaded up into a truck and removed from the system entirely to places like Kres Lake in Kalama where they spend their remaining days swimming around the edge of the lake looking for some way to escape this HELL they've been dropped into, at this point their best hope is they WILL be caught.
Raising the limit of hatchery steelhead on the Kalama is nothing more than another attempt to remove hatchery fish from the system to protect the wild gene pool that show up this time of year to spawn, apparently there are studies to support the idea that hatchery steelhead are a weaker strain of fish that if left in the system to spawn with wild fish it will pollute the wild genes, thus threatening the future of our wild steelhead...WHO KNOWS, all I have to say on that is QUINAULT.
I think most of us will agree our steelhead fishery is under threats from all sides, but consider this, with recent record returns on salmon, maybe the steelheads demise will be that they are listed as a game fish,
thus making it illegal to end their life by being commercially harvested and put in a can......
Hatchery steelhead have really come into the spotlight over the past few years, with more emphasis on "saving" our wild gene stocks. I'm not really sure where I stand on this whole issue, as a guide I'm never in favor of less fish, in other words decrease, or in some cases, terminate the release of thousands of hatchery fish in an "attempt" to save a few so called wild fish, BUT, one of my favorite steelhead streams this time of year has no hatchery fish at all, its all about catching and releasing big wild fish.
Over the years I've heard many opinions and rumors about where our fisheries will be in the future, one such rumor now is there will be no more hatchery steelhead as of 2017, unless the river has or can implement a brood stock program, in other words hatchery fish that were live spawned from wild parents, and yet those of us who live to fish steelhead remember the thriving brood stock program on the Olympic Peninsula that was terminated without a justifiable reason, so who knows where the truth lies.
Hatchery steelhead in the state of Washington are in most cases a terminal fishery, in other words put there only to be harvested by anglers. To give anglers more advantage of harvesting hatchery steelhead some systems such as the Cowlitz River and the Kalama River have a recycle program, meaning when hatchery steelhead come back from the ocean to spawn, if they are not caught, or "harvested", when they reach the hatchery from where they were raised they are collected in a pen, loaded up into a truck, driven downstream and realeased to make another journey upstream past anglers attempting to catch them again. On the Kalama River if a fish is able to make the journey several time without ending up being tagged on a catch record card, they are again loaded up into a truck and removed from the system entirely to places like Kres Lake in Kalama where they spend their remaining days swimming around the edge of the lake looking for some way to escape this HELL they've been dropped into, at this point their best hope is they WILL be caught.
Raising the limit of hatchery steelhead on the Kalama is nothing more than another attempt to remove hatchery fish from the system to protect the wild gene pool that show up this time of year to spawn, apparently there are studies to support the idea that hatchery steelhead are a weaker strain of fish that if left in the system to spawn with wild fish it will pollute the wild genes, thus threatening the future of our wild steelhead...WHO KNOWS, all I have to say on that is QUINAULT.
I think most of us will agree our steelhead fishery is under threats from all sides, but consider this, with recent record returns on salmon, maybe the steelheads demise will be that they are listed as a game fish,
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