When we heard that Olympic National Park was closing all Park waters on the Hoh River and South Fork Hoh our initial reaction was one of anger and disbelief. We felt that we needed answers from the managers about why this fishery was being shut down.
We wanted to speak with biologists with both Olympic National Park and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. The Park returned our calls quickly but unfortunately we are still waiting on WDFW.
Sam Brenkman with ONP talked in length with us about the issues that caused the closure. Olympic National Park did not want to shut down the fishery but felt with the status of the chinook run that there was no other option. The forecast for this year’s run was approximately 850 fish, which is below the escapement floor of 900 fish. This spring/summer chinook stock has not met the escapement goal 5 of the last 6 years. With spring chinook stocks down coastwide, the Hoh River stock is considered extremely important.
The positive news is that this is not meant as a permanent closure and the National Park wants to continue to allow fishing on the Hoh River. They feel like they did the right and only thing they could do with the current downstream management in place.
This is why we left messages for biologists with the State. We cannot understand that will the current state of the Hoh River’s spring/summer chinook why there is a fishery for stray hatchery fish that allows barbed hooks and bait. Besides the impact on the under-escaped king salmon, there are impacts on downstream wild winter steelhead, wild summer steelhead, and listed bull trout. We want to ask WDFW if there is any creel survey on the lower Hoh during this fishery and why a fishery is opened on a stock of fish forecast below escapement with a population trend moving downward.
We have not heard from WDFW yet, but we will keep trying to get these questions answered and attempt to fix the problem. We are still upset about a closure that impacts the people and fishermen least responsible for chinook impacts. To us, it seems like the users, both tribal and non-tribal, who actually directly harvest these fish should be shut down before backcountry trout and steelhead fishermen are.
Low runs of fish are never a good thing. Hopefully we can all work together to not just re-open fisheries but bring back healthy numbers of Hoh River salmon.