HITS & MISSES — CHAIR’S CORNER The View from 1898

And a mentor who remembered the days of abundance

By Pete Soverel

Ihave been a steelheader since January 1969, 54 years, about one-third of the angling history for West Coast steelhead. I joined the Steelhead Trout Club a year later which put me in contact with an early steelhead fly fishing pioneer, Ken McLeod (1898-1987). His progeny didn’t fall very far from the tree. His son, George and grandson, Ken, carried on his legacy of steelhead conservation which, altogether, spanned more than 100 years.

For reasons unknown to me, in 1970, Ken, who was often a bit stand offish, decided to help me in my quest to become a proficient steelhead fly fisher. Fortunately for me, in spite of precipitous declines in wild steelhead populations over his lifetime, there were still fishable populations of wild fish in the 1970s, but hardly like the “old days” of Ken’s earlier life.

In the year Ken was born, the US Fish Commission estimated the adult steelhead return to the Stillaguamish River in Washington State was at least 95,000 with almost 50,000 harvested by just six commercial fishers in the lower river. By the early 1970s, returns were probably about 5% of the 1898 return.

Nonetheless returns were still sufficiently numerous to provide excellent fly fishing, although for many years there were very few anglers who pursued winter steelhead in Washington with flies. I would often go years between encounters with other anglers.

downstream from the mouth of the Okanogan River, where hundreds of summer run steelhead ganged up before running up the Okanogan, mixed in with thousands of steelhead headed much further upstream into Canada. This, of course, pre-dated Bonneville Dam or any other mainstem dams. I doubt that more than 100 steelhead now make it back to the Okanogan and none make it past Grand Coulee dam. The North Fork Clearwater River in Idaho, hosted returns measured in scores of thousands through the 1950s until the construction of Dworshak Dam at its mouth creating a great recreational fishery for crappie. No — as in zero wild steelhead now return to North Fork Clearwater.

California was a bit different and was the epicenter for pioneering fly fishers. For example, through the mid-1950s the annual harvest of wild Eel River steelhead hovered between 35,000 and 50,000 fish! The latest returns of about 2,000 wild steelhead are ballyhooed with “they’re back!” — just 4% of the 1950s era harvest.

When Ken and I fished together (mostly on his home water, the North Fork Stillaguamish) or visited at STC meetings, he regaled me with stories from the pre-dam era. I once asked him for his favorite water. Without hesitation he said the mainstem Columbia River

Up and down the West Coast, managers/agencies sought easy ways to halt declines arising from more or less unconstrained commercial fisheries, liquidation of native forests, habitat degradation, dam construction, etc., etc. etc. Early efforts to supplement wild populations with artificial production were completely ineffective in spite of releasing scores of millions of alevins or juveniles. Few came back. Finally, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the hatchery warriors discovered that if they reared incubated fish to smolt size, they realized return rates of about 4%-6%. Nirvana — problem solved! At last, they realized their dream best described by Jim Lichatowich in his landmark book “Salmon without Rivers”! No need to worry about harvest, habitat, dams, urbanization, water quality, and so on.

So for 60 to 100 years, US West Coast anadromous fish managers have pursued hatchery based management with dogged determination. We all know how that has worked out. From Baja California to Cold Bay, Alaska, salmon and steelhead are at very high risk of extirpation in thousands of watersheds. In spite of decades of data demonstrating the bankruptcy of this approach, there

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The Osprey has never been a serious assessment of hatchery based management, alternatives to this failed model or threats posed by these practices to rapidly dwindling wild stocks. Consider the plight of wild chum salmon in streams in the Bella Coola watershed in British Columbia. For decades, Canada operated a large-scale chum hatchery at Snootli Creek in the lower Bella Coola River, releasing millions of alevins annually and authorizing intensive interception fisheries for returning adults. The outcome — wild chum throughout this region teeter on the brink of extirpation. The situation is so dire, that Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) closed the marine commercial fishery that severely impacts wild chum stocks throughout the region.

Wild steelhead returns to the Columbia/Snake system when Ken fished there in the 1920s certainly numbered several million, and even more than in his father’s day, dating back to the middle of the 19th Century. Except for determined managers, we know how all this worked out. About 40% of the stocks are extinct. All the rest are at elevated risk of near-term extirpation. As I have noted many times before, any business or military leader with similar track records would have been dismissed. With fish managers, we weed out those who question the obvious and promote folks who insist the old way is the right way.

For flavor, consider this year’s projected wild steelhead return to the Columbia/Snake rivers is the lowest on record, continuing the increasingly steep slide towards oblivion. One of the small rivers in Kamchatka — about the size of Washington’s Tolt River — hosts more returning adults than the entire Columbia/Snake. The incomparable Thompson River steelhead run in British Columbia has been virtually eradicated and steelhead catch rates in BC have declined by 70% over the past 12 years. Let that sink in.

Pete Soverel is Chair of The Osprey Management and Editorial Committee and founder and President of The Conservation Angler, one of The Osprey’s supporting partner organizations. www.theconservationangler.org