A Brief Overview of Occupy Skagit 2014

March 29

The day dawned comfortably grey and rainy as I sneaked out of bed. My fiance slept soundly as the door closed behind me and I began the two-hour drive to Rockport, Washington and the gorgeous Skagit River. When I made my usual pre-drive stop at Cowgirls Espresso, the barista asked, as per usual, if I was going fishing.

"Not today."

Now, sane people usually don't drive for hours to prime steelhead water specifically not to fish, but then, those who pursue the grey ghosts are not well-known for their sanity, and the event I was driving to was created in protest of laws that make little sense.

What Laws?

To avoid writing a book, lets break it down to its simplest form. Laws regarding wild steelhead are, in the opinion of the Occupy Skagit (OS) movement*, a wee bit wonky.  All wild Puget Sound steelhead are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. This would be great, if all Puget Sound steelhead populations faced the same pressures and habitat conditions, which they (thankfully) do not. Unfortunately, this means that fishing for any wild steelhead during the spring season (Feb 1 - Apr 30) is closed in Puget Sound watersheds, even over runs that are healthy enough to sustain fishing. The OS movement would like to see the laws changed from blanket management to a basin-by-basin management system, starting with a selective gear, catch & release fishery on the Skagit.

Why should we care?

Protecting all of the wild steelhead in Puget Sound can't be bad, right? The answer to that is not nearly as black and white as we would all love for it to be. There are a couple of problems associated with simply shutting down a season on a healthy run of fish like the Skagit.

• The local economy takes a serious hit.
• Fishermen who travel for their sport pour money to gas stations, hotels, restaurants and sporting goods stores. If you shut down a fishery, you shut that valve.

and

• Other fisheries become more crowded
• There are places in Washington, namely the Olympic Peninsula, where you can target wild steelhead during the spring due to a lack of ESA protection. Without any options nearby, Puget Sound anglers make the trip out to the OP to target those fish, increasing the pressure on those (smaller) runs. The increased pressure (among other factors, of course) has put so much strain on the already vastly diminished runs on the Peninsula that Bob Triggs, a well-known and highly respected guide, has stopped guiding for wild winter-run steelhead altogether. 

Won't the Skagit run be depleted by fishing?

The ESA listing of these steelhead occurred in 2007. Let's take a look at escapement numbers (in ten-year increments) before and after that decision:

1978 - 5,757 (Catch & Kill season)

1983 - 7,732 (Catch & Kill season)

1993 - 6,900 (Catch & Release season)

2003 - 6,818 (Catch & Release season)

2013 - 8,800 (No angling)

In between these years, there were escapement numbers much higher and much lower; like all rivers, the Skagit will have good and bad years, but the general trend over the past 35 years is one of a population maintaining itself in a healthy, sustainable way. There are at least two biologists that believe the Skagit is at or near its carrying capacity of about 9000 spawners; Turning the Skagit into a zoo just doesn't make sense for the communities that depend on anglers, the anglers that want to increase their opportunity or the other runs of steelhead that are seeing increased pressure.

The other reason the Skagit run is safe from decimation by Occupy Skagit is that OS is advocating for a Catch & Release season. Now, there will be incidental mortality with a CnR season, that is just how it happens. But, this mortality is not nearly enough to pose a threat to the overall health of the run. OS is not trying to get rid of the conservative management practices that have traditionally been in effect on the Skagit. In fact, they are in favor of shortening or closing the season in years where escapement is forecast at under 6000 fish.

Right now, however, the fish numbers are a moot point. With the way the ESA protections currently work, the Skagit could have a million spawning fish, yet there is still no mechanism to open a season on this run. Occupy Skagit is aiming to fix that silliness by shifting the management to a basin-by-basin strategy.

What can we do?

There are a few things you can do. Coming up on April 11th and 12th is a meeting of the Fish and Wildlife Commission in Olympia. OS will be there and will speak; if you simply show up and help fill the room, you will help send the message that this is important to the angling community.

You can also send an email to your legislator in regards to Occupy Skagit. We need to show them that the reduced opportunity hurts angling communities. They may not read all of our emails, but if we are persistent, they won't be able to ignore us.

After the event concluded, I lingered by the Skagit for a while, its emerald-green flow murmuring past. The rain had let up and the sun was shooting rays through the clouds. As I strolled downstream, out in the middle of the river, a fish rolled.

"Steelhead Green"

Relevant Links

Occupy Skagit on Facebook

Skagit Valley Herald article

WFFF Thread on OS2014

Special thanks to _WW_ from the Washington Fly Fishing Forum for his insights.

* I do not speak for or represent Occupy Skagit in any way. The views and opinions expressed in this blog are my own.