I hope you all carved out time to get on the water this fall to take advantage of the relatively strong wild steelhead runs. I never get as many days on the rivers as I would like, but I did have the privilege of joining several of our stalwart Wild Steelhead Initiative supporters on a trip to Skeena Country in late October.
The water was high and visibility was limited, but we still managed to bring a few fish to hand each day. And I’m pleased to report that they were in prime condition, as you can see in the photo of a gorgeous hen. Holding (gently of course!) a wild steelhead like her never gets old and always provides inspiration to make sure future generations of conservation-minded anglers have the same opportunity.
Klamath River
On a bluebird day in early October, I was fortunate to join our California staff for a tour of former dam sites on the Klamath River. It was humbling to stand at the very spot where one of the four dams, Copco I, stood just months before and watch chinook swimming in water where they had not been for more than a century. It was a reminder of the power of grit and stamina, demonstrated by both the resilient fish making their way “home” and the advocates, including TU’s Brian Johnson, who spent decades in the trenches to unshackle the Klamath. Since my visit, coho have been found in Fall Creek and steelhead have been tagged above where Iron Gate dam once stood.
TU is now hard at work ensuring the Klamath’s wild steelhead and salmon are managed well so they can take full advantage of the hundreds of miles of newly reconnected habitat, and restoring that now-accessible habitat.
We already have notched a win.
TU staffer James Fraser, a key player on our Wild Steelhead Initiative team, went knocking on doors in Salem during the 2024 legislative session and helped secure funding for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to deploy a monitoring crew to track returning fish as they repopulate the basin above the former dams. You can read more about this legislative achievement in this Wild Steelheaders United blog post. Looking ahead to the 2025 Oregon legislative session, TU will advocate for new funding in ODFW’s budget to install fish screens at irrigation diversions in the reintroduction area, and to maintain funding for the nascent Klamath Fish Reintroduction monitoring team.
Oregon Hatcheries
In Oregon, TU is making progress on minimizing the hatchery system’s footprint in watersheds with strong populations of wild steelhead.
Two years ago, TU and partners succeeded in convincing the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife (ODFW) Commission to end the hatchery summer steelhead program on the North Umpqua. Local parties challenged the decision, but the courts have denied the claims thus far. While the case is still not over, the trial court did recently dissolve an injunction that had kept the hatchery program operating until Fall 2024. As of this writing, ODFW will not be releasing hatchery summer steelhead smolts in the North Umpqua in spring 2025.
In addition to these program-specific changes, ODFW faces massive budget challenges that may result in some hatchery closures during the 2025-2027 biennium. In 2023, the legislature directed ODFW to determine the climate change resilience of its hatchery system, consider the financial sustainability of its system, and to make recommendations regarding hatchery system changes. ODFW convened a small group of 10 organizations for a facilitated process that would inform the Department’s recommendations and perhaps lay the groundwork for a hatchery investment blueprint.
TU helped shape that process and participated, advocating that ODFW downsize its hatchery footprint in watersheds with the best habitat, water quality, and wild fish populations, and invest in hatcheries located in degraded basins with less wild fish potential. We have strong signs from the Governor’s recommended budget for the 2025 session that ODFW will receive cuts for its hatchery program, and TU will continue engaging to reduce hatchery pressure on Oregon’s best wild steelhead waters.
Washington OP & Coastal Steelhead
It is difficult to change the direction of steelhead management if the managers are resistant to change and think they can roll you. That is why TU’s wild steelhead team took a strong stand during the 2024 Washington state legislative session in opposition to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s funding request for a deeply inadequate Olympic Peninsula/coastal steelhead management plan. Due in large part to our opposition, WDFW’s funding request was denied.
We got the agency’s attention.
WDFW is now working with us to develop a funding request to implement the science-based, comprehensive OP/coastal steelhead management plan that we helped craft in 2022. That plan would fund improved monitoring and finally develop Regional Management Plans for coastal watersheds that meet federal standards, provide modern frameworks for fisheries and establish conservation goals. Rest assured that TU’s wild steelhead team will be putting its shoulder to the wheel during the 2025 legislative session to secure the funding for its implementation. We’ll keep you posted on our progress.
This work is urgently needed. NOAA released their draft science review for the pending petition to protect Olympic Peninsula steelhead under the Endangered Species Act. They found “Overutilization, inadequate regulation, and hatchery effects were identified as significant threats to winter-run steelhead, especially in the Big Four [Quillayute, Hoh, Queets, and Quinault] river systems, where the majority of the DPS abundance resides. High harvest rates, potentially outdated capacity (escapement goal) estimates, use of non-native hatchery stocks, and lack of adequate marking of hatchery fish influenced these higher risk scores.” The agency concluded that the “Olympic Peninsula Steelhead DPS was at a moderate risk of extinction.” We see NOAA’s review as helping our cause because it corroborates what we’ve been telling WDFW for almost a decade about the condition of OP wild steelhead and what is broken that needs fixing.
Steelhead in the Seattle Times
This fall Lynda Mapes wrote a feature story on Washington’s struggling steelhead populations. Some of you may have seen it. While we were happy to see wild steelhead be highlighted prominently in a major newspaper, the article brushed over management’s failures and didn’t point to the work underway to protect and rebuild populations. We responded with a letter to the editor the paper published, and have expanded on the missing context and our vision for recovery in an extensive blog post.
Coalition Building
I’ll wrap up with news of a promising new effort TU is leading to form a formal collaboration among BC, OR and WA organizations with a focus on wild steelhead conservation. Many times over the years I’ve heard statements along the lines of: “I wish the groups working to conserve wild steelhead would work together more often. I want to support larger, coordinated efforts to move the needle further on critical issues including fishery and harvest management and hatchery reform.” While we are making progress in these areas, we are always striving to increase the speed and scale of our work.
Non-profit organizations focused on wild steelhead conservation are invariably small with limited reach and capacity. This holds true for TU as well. Though we are a large organization (~350 staff nationwide), just a handful of staff focus on wild steelhead. And contrary to what some say, size does matter. Important issues, such as bycatch of steelhead in ocean salmon fisheries require sustained engagement and a multi-pronged strategy that necessitates expertise in multiple disciplines (e.g., policy advocacy, communications, science, grassroots and grasstops organizing, etc.) and the ability to influence multiple decision-makers across state and national boundaries.
A structured, funded collaborative among US and BC groups that work on wild steelhead conservation could enable us to prevail on critical issues that have been beyond our reach as individual organizations. That is the concept we are currently exploring with the generous support of a passionate wild steelhead angler and conservationist who funded a gathering in November of representatives (photo below) from nine organizations (four from BC and five from the US) on the banks of the Deschutes River in Maupin, Oregon, to discuss the potential of such a collaborative. I’m pleased to report that there was unanimous support for proceeding.
Stay tuned for more news on this unprecedented effort in the months to come.
Stay in Touch
It has been a busy fall, and I am digging out my sink tips and looking forward to some days on winter steelhead rivers.
As the year wraps up, I want to thank all of you for your support and trust. Plainly stated, we cannot pursue our wild steelhead conservation work without your continued generosity. It is supported entirely by you and other conservation-minded anglers who are passionate about wild steelhead and the privilege to fish for them.
If you have not done so already, please make a year-end gift to TU’s Wild Steelhead Initiative. Scott Reinstein, in TU’s Development office, is always happy to share ways to support this work, whether by check, stock, or with a tax-advantaged gift.
As always, I’ll continue sharing updates and information, but please reach out any time you’d like to discuss our work. On behalf of TU’s wild steelhead team, I would like to express our gratitude and wish you all happy holidays, a bountiful 2025, and quality time on the water.
Rob Masonis
Vice President Pacific Region
robert.masonis@tu.org
Outlook for the 2024/2025 winter steelhead
Gary Marston, Wild Steelhead Initiative Science Advisor
Looking ahead at this season’s winter steelhead returns, we can expect the modest uptick in numbers in 2023/2024 to continue into the next season, with some populations trending slightly upward and others slightly down. However, it may be a good year for big steelhead, as smolts out-migrating in 2022 experienced much higher survival than has been the norm for the past decade. As a result, managers expect to see more fish that spent three years in marine waters return this season to the Washington and Oregon coasts.
Olympic Peninsula: Last season, most rivers along the Washington Coast came in above expectations. Returns in the Hoh and Quillayute watersheds were well above their escapement goals at 6,043 for the Hoh River and 10,812 for the Quillayute. Forecasts for this season are on a similar trajectory, with 4,287 steelhead expected to return to the Hoh River and 9,662 expected back to the Quillayute watershed. The Upper Quinault River is expected to see an improvement over last year’s return of 1,682 with 2,260 steelhead forecasted. Thanks to the improving numbers of steelhead, fishing on all three of these watersheds will be open through March 31st.
However, it is not all good news as the Queets River in Olympic National Park will close on December 16. While the river is expected to exceed the escapement goal by a slight margin, it has been on a long-term decline, and as such the National Park Service decided to take a conservative approach to this season.
While it is great to see some additional fishing opportunities this season, it is important to note that there is a pending decision on whether or not to list Olympic Peninsula steelhead and a dire need for a long-term vision for designing fisheries that are consistent with recovering populations that have been in decline for many years. This concern was captured in our November comments to WDFW and the Fish & Wildlife Commission.
Skagit River: The forecast for the Skagit River has not been formally announced yet but is expected to come out by the end of the year. However, returns are expected to be similar to last year when 6,722 fish returned to the river and provided a 5-day a week catch and release fishery from February 3rd through April 17th.
The Fishery Management Plan for the Skagit/Sauk winter steelhead season is something we’ve supported through our advocacy for the Quicksilver Portfolio for Puget Sound rivers. The emphasis on wild fish recovery, daily in-season monitoring, and a move away from Maximum Sustained Yield are forward-looking examples of 21st Century steelhead management. The river was very crowded last year, and there were many anecdotal reports of inconsistent monitoring. We’ve shared our concerns with managers because we want this fishery to be a success and a model for others up and down the coast.
Oregon Coast: Returns of winter steelhead on the Oregon Coast are expected to be similar to last year and as such most steelhead rivers will be open for the full breadth of the season. The one exception is the Rogue River where conservation measures have been put in place—with TU’s engagement and support—due to below-average returns of half-pounder steelhead in 2022 and 2023. As a result, the harvest of wild steelhead is being limited to the lower Rogue River below the confluence with the Illinois River, with no retention of wild steelhead in the Middle and Upper Rogue for the 2024-2025 winter steelhead season. The upper Rogue River and Illinois River will be under catch and release regulations for wild steelhead this year.