MARCH MADNESS GOT an early start Monday when The Pacific Fishery Management Council released three “public review alternatives” for non-treaty Pacific Ocean salmon fisheries that reflect anticipated low coho returns.
These alternatives were devised by state, tribal and federal fishery managers:
■ Alternative 1: 58,600 chinook, 37,800 coho.
■ Alternative 2: 30,000 chinook, 14,700 coho.
■ Alternative 3: No non-tribal commercial or recreational salmon fisheries in coastal water.
Alternative chinook and coho quotas for tribal ocean fisheries range from 30,000 to 50,000 chinook, while coho quotas run from 0 to 40,000 silvers.
Alternative 3 serves as the nuclear option, since shuttering fisheries would be a devastating blow to communities like Neah Bay, Westport, LaPush and Ilwaco.
Non-tribal commercial fishers would likely be able to take advantage of federal grants for uninsured losses. This is what happened when the Federal Department of Commerce declared a fishery resource disaster in 1994, the last time a salmon season was not held off the Pacific coast of Washington.
Many articles have appeared since Monday’s announcement, most blaming warm water conditions offshore, i.e. the blob, and subsequently poor populations of lipid-rich cold-water plankton and zooplankton species, the primary food source for salmon.
Scott Chitwood, Natural Resources Director for the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe, said the Dungeness River Management Team was briefed on this situation last month by Brian Burke and Correigh Greene of NOAA Fisheries.
“They described to the team a condition that had not been seen before in many years of sampling juvenile salmon off our coast,” Chitwood said.
“They began to observe juvenile salmon that were exhibiting signs of starvation. They showed pictures of emaciated fish in samples taken in September [2015].
“They hypothesized that while plankton and zooplankton were sometimes abundant this past summer, the species present were not typical for our region.
“For example, copepods normally found in our ‘northern’ waters are rich in lipids and are believed to be an essential part of the diet of local coho populations. These were generally absent later in the season.”
Returns can be compromised well before salmon reach the Pacific Ocean as smolts.
First, a little background on the coho life cycle.
“[Coho] salmon occurs over a wide geographic range, but in our area these fish are almost all on a three-year life cycle,” Chitwood said.
“[They] spawn in fall of year x. Eggs come out of the gravel and fry rear during year x+1. Smolts leave the freshwater environment in spring of year x+2. Adults return to home stream in fall of year x+3.”
Chitwood said this cycle is somewhat predictable, with jacks, early returning males, coming back on a cycle of year x+2, just a few months after heading to the ocean as smolts.
This means coho returning this summer and fall were spawned in fall 2013, reared in home streams in 2014, and left for the Pacific as smolts in 2015.
This is a big part of the problem, according to Chitwood
“We know the abundance of smolts migrating to saltwater in 2015 was quite low, the lowest on record for many streams,” Chitwood said.
The low numbers of smolts leaving streams in 2015 will likely equal low numbers of returning coho returning home this fall, according to Chitwood.
Extremely low snowpack produced drought conditions last summer on West End river systems.
But the effect of the low snowpack was felt by smolts in area streams last spring.
Chitwood used McDonald and Siebert creeks, between Port Angeles and Sequim, as examples.
“We monitor the smolt migration in McDonald Creek and Siebert Creek. Both of these streams (and there are others) are what we call ‘bar-bound’ streams, meaning that when surface flows drop to certain levels, water from the creek goes ‘sub-gravel’ as the creek hits the high side of the beach leading to the Strait of Juan de Fuca.”
Chitwood said normally this bar-bound condition tends to occur in the latter portion of summer and continues until rains return in earnest in the fall.
“But in 2015 this bar-bound condition was occurring in the spring,” Chitwood said.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have an estimate of the number of smolts that would have made it to the Strait but were not able to due to this barrier at the stream mouth.”
The outlook is likely to be even darker for coho in 2017, Chitwood said.
Stocks of brood year 2014 coho were fry in streams and rivers during last summer’s record drought.
“We are not optimistic that the smolt populations will be all that robust based on the dry conditions between April and November of 2015,” Chitwood said.
“I have a simple formula I like to use: water equals habitat equals fish.
“Perhaps an oversimplification, but extreme low water certainly limits the volume of available habitat and limited habitat often means limited fish.”
And limited fish stocks will lead to limited fishing opportunities for recreational anglers this year and in years to come.
North of Falcon meeting
A chance to discuss the data behind the salmon season setting process with state Fish and Wildlife fisheries biologists comes tonight, when the North Olympic Peninsula Chapter of Puget Sound Anglers host a North of Falcon meeting in Sequim.
The meeting is set for 6 p.m. at Trinity United Methodist Church, 100 S. Blake Ave.
“The interested fishing public is highly encouraged to come and let your voice be heard,” chapter secretary Sherry Anderson said.
“Biologists will be on hand to answer questions.”
Anderson added that the meeting should end by 9 p.m.
Razor clam digs
A three-day razor clam dig running Friday through Sunday at Mocrocks and Copalis beaches was recently approved by state shellfish managers.
The Mocrocks and Copalis digs are scheduled on the following dates and low tides:
■ Friday: 4:15 p.m., 0.7 feet.
■ Saturday: 5:07 p.m., 0.5 feet
■ Sunday: 4:40 p.m., 0.4 feet.
If staying home and watching copious amounts of college basketball doesn’t sound like an ideal way to while away this coming weekend, the dig, which is on evening tides, coincides with the annual Ocean Shores Razor Clam Festival/Seafood Extravaganza.
Long Beach also is open to razor clam harvest daily through March 31.
A full list of low tides in March is posted at tinyurl.com/PDN-Razors16.
Diggers can take 15 razor clams per day and are required to keep the first 15 they dig.
Each digger’s clams must be kept in a separate container.
All diggers age 15 or older must have an applicable 2015-16 fishing license to harvest razor clams on any beach.
Licenses can be purchased from fishhunt.dfw.wa.gov and from license vendors around the state.
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Outdoors columnist Michael Carman appears here Thursdays and Fridays. He can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 57050 or at mcarman@peninsuladailynews.com.
