Skagit Summer Chinook fishery?

[mitch184]

With over 18k summer chinook 'forecast' back to the skagit, is there any rumblings of a possible river summer chinoook fishery? Even if it's early for when the actual fish show up, it would be awesome to have a sockeye/chinook fishery close to home. I know the last opener was pretty much a bust for sportsmen, but I got to throw one of those up river summer kings on the BBQ.... let me tell you what, they rival columbia springers. Just the chance to fish for them brings in quite a boost for the local economy.

AND... I know those will say if we open it up for sportsmen than we also open it up for the tribes to net..... but ....doesn't an in-river sockeye fishery do the same thing? Seems like 7.5" mesh for sockeye might be a little overkill but its usually close to what I've seen.

Any thoughts?

[Smalma]

Mitch -
There has been no discussion on an in-river fishery targeting the summer/fall Chinook to date during the NOF process. It has not been brought up the public at either the two formal NOF meetings or at the Mill Creek meeting. There is one more meeting on April first (an appropriate date for the NOF process) at the Embassy Suites in Lynnwood. I believe the meeting starts at 9.

I suspect part of the issue is the uncertainty in how well the run will actually return and it may be that the Sauk portion of the summer/falls (a separate stock) will be below escapement objectives (don't recall its goal). The Sauk is just recovering from the effectives of the 2003 flood. Model runs that should be available at the April first meeting could shed some light on that.

Curt

[mitch184]

Thanks, I was hoping you'd chime in. I'm assuming that the Skagit has NOT been hitting its forecasted runs for summer chinook for the past few years. Do you know if that's accurate an if so, how much lower has it been?

Also, since I believe that the lower river spawners are the weakest stock (correct me if I'm wrong), have you ever heard of a possibility of an upriver fishery? I guess ideally you'd have one above the Sauk since the upriver mainstem stock is the strongest, but fishing up that high for chinook is a tough sell and might not be the best idea. I'm not exactly sure of the spawning location of the lower river stocks, but what about a fishery from Gilligan to Concrete or Concrete to Rockport?

I've never heard of such, probably a pipe dream, but wanted to check with those in know.

[Smalma]

Don't have the data in front of me but I expect it has been 6 or 8 years since the escapement goal has been met.

If I remember correctly that one time we had a summer fishery (at least in recent history it was on the lower river). That seems to be the area that many want to fish (highest fish quality??).


Curt