The politics involving Salmon are complex. This is an old issue, and wont change anytime soon. If you REALLY understand how it works.. then you would know that Idaho has only ONE voice regarding these issues.. the tribe.
The commercials below Bonnie have a say.. and they support the sporties because thats what keeps them in business.. we get to fish because you get to fish etc.
If the fact that 60% that get caught down river are Idaho fish bums you out… let the idea that its 80 % Idaho water that made it all happen fry your head for a while.
Spend a day looking up things like " Compact " " Boldt" and the items surrounding those issues.
When you do.. it makes things like " Hey everybody.. I was camped on a rock for several days during steelhead boot season and after 10 hours I went to eat my lunch and some guys fished off my rock.. are they bad ??" want to pull your hair out
If any of you get a chance read the book " Salmon without Rivers" great all around book but theres some really interesting history about the lower river fishing industry
What gets me is anytime this subject gets brought up on Ifish the guys over on the westside of the state tell you to hop in your rig and drive to where the fish are if you aren’t happy. if the situation were reversed and they had to drive over here to fish for springers i bet they’d flip. then they try to tell you that the fish aren’t worth eating by the time they get here. lol. i try to make it down to umatilla oregon at least once before i fish idaho and even that section of the river gets screwed. i think last year there was like a four day season that there were actually fish in that stretch of the river and then it shut down.
I get just as mad as the next guy about how the lower columbia is managed but it is what it is. Sure would be funny if Idaho quit planting hatchery salmon… That would really give them something to complain about.
Ive often thought about “what ifs” Wouldnt it be a kick if ID didnt clip adipose fins but clipped say a maxilary or something and not say anything about it till the ID season was about to open. All the lower river guys would be crying about " all the natives this year". LOL
they would have to clip something or we wouldnt be able to retain any fish.
Based on some new research, clipping adipose fins may be stopped. A new study found that the adipose fin isnt just a fleshy fin. Its filled with sensory organs that likely help the fish position itself in current. After reading it, my first though was, I wonder if this is “The” reason for low hatchery returns.
Only the indians can keep unclipped springers in the Columbia River. Theres a couple rivers in WA where you can keep unclipped steelhead. Fall chinook you can in alot of rivers. But not springers in the Columbia basin
Im pretty sure even the commercial guys have to throw back unclipped fish even if they are dead.
well thats good. i remember reading an article that was saying something about washington and oregon allowing the keep of some wild chinook and people who left comments on the article were in an up roar about it.
That brings up something I’ve been wondering about for several years. They let us keep jack because they are juvies and can’t breed anyway. It seems to me that if it is a jack, you should be able to keep it no matter whether it is clipped or not. They don’t or can’t breed anyway, so why not? Other than it is not legal. Seems that law should be changed, IMO.
Jacks can breed. They do in the wild, and they use them in the hatcheries. As much as I would like to trade them for B run steelhead and 4 and 5 year old chinook, they are an important part of natures plan to protect anadromous fish populations from a catastrophic event.
It’s always been my understanding and I’ve been told by F&G officers that they can’t and that’s why they let us keep them. Seems there are some differences in opinion about whether they breed or not, even among the “experts”.
Anyone who thinks that jacks are incapable of producing and depositing fertile sperm/milt on salmon roe should seriously consider removing the word “expert” from their title.
Here are some snippets from July 2009 email conversations that I had with David Parrish, Resident Fisheries Program Coordinator for Idaho Fish and Game in Boise, regarding using jacks in their spawning programs as well as Lower Columbia springer harvest:
“Jacks are used in spawning programs at our fish hatcheries, however they are only used proportionate to their percentage of the male population of anadromous salmon. Our genetics experts have been concerned for a number of years about artificial breeding programs skewing the percentages of jacks to adult males and we have consciously tried avoiding this from happening.”
"Due to the extreme number of jacks this year, we will only use a small portion in our artificial spawning efforts. If you stop and think –it’s important to have multiple year classes returning each year to guard against catastrophic events that could wipe-out a single year spawning event. By having 3, 4, and a few 5 year-old spawning fish, it would take several successive years of failure to lead to extinction.
I’m in total agreement with your assessment of the harvest issue and how it’s being handled in the Lower Columbia. Washington and Oregon ignored our concern about heavy harvest in the lower Columbia on fish we know by PIT tag data, were returning to Idaho. We are guessing from preliminary data that harvest on Rapid River salmon was in the 40 –50% range by down-river anglers. Until we have the political and legal will to push the issue; Washington and Oregon won’t change current harvest practices. There are strong contingents of outfitters in Washington and Oregon that actively lobby for long seasons and high quotas all along the Columbia River system. Economics of salmon and steelhead fishing are staggering and they don’t want to give it up without a fight."
“Because salmon are listed under ESA, Washington and Oregon can’t allow targeted harvest on wild salmon or steelhead. There is some incidental take that is anticipated and each state has to have a permit from NOAA/NMFS to cover this mortality factor.”
This covers a few of the issues that have come up on this thread.
Jacks are 100% fully capable. Heres another little salmon tidbit. Theres another life history form in some salmon. Its called a precocious parr. They are sexually mature males that never smolt and go to the oceon. They spawn their first year. Some estimets put thier contribution at up to 30% of the spawning. Pretty cool little buggers. They get all colored up for spawning and then die.
Got_Bait’s right. Jacks can and do spawn. They might get chased off of a redd by a larger male and loose spawning opportunities that way, maybe that was what the guy you talked to was referring to, otherwise he was just wrong.
