Queets River System
     
The Queets River System is a much more disheartening case. Most of the river system lies within Olympic National Park, and sport fishing rules there are set by the Park Service. The Queets has generally had some of the most restrictive rules on the sport harvest of wild steelhead over the last 10 to 15 years of all the rivers with healthy runs. Unfortunately, this has not produced the abundance of steelhead that is desired. The table below sheds some light on the reason why.
It is fairly easy to see why there is a problem on the Queets -tribal over-harvest.
The WDFW's position on the escapement goal for the last 15+ years has been 4200. However, the Quinault tribe has never agreed with this figure, and is currently arguing to have it lowered to 2500. While the State's goal was always thought to be a bit on the conservative side, we do not believe 2500 is an adequate number of spawners. There is some support for a goal in the 3200 to 3700 range. Based on an escapement goal of 4200, the tribal fishery has exceeded their harvest share in virtually every year during the last 20+ years. Below is a bar chart depicting sport and tribal harvest relative to the harvest share for the last 10 years.

To be fair, this chart is based on the 4200 escapement goal, and there have been a number of year by year agreements regarding escapement and harvest while the parties have tried to work this out and those agreements are not reflected in the harvest share calculation. However, even if one assumed the escapement goal was 2500, the tribal fishery would have exceeded the harvest share in more than half of the last 23years. We strongly urge you to write Jeff Koeings, Director, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and urge him to bring this issue to an acceptable resolution.

Queets River info/action

Unfortunately, the bad new for the Queets does not end with the escapement goal. The tribe has taken the position that they do not need to be constrained by the 50% harvest share, even if it is based on the lower goal. They have argued that they leave enough fish in the river for recreational fisherman, particularly since the fishery is primarily managed for Wild Steelhead Release (WSR). This is one of the many reasons we oppose the possible Statewide WSR rule proposal.

WSR Info/action

 
<To Quillayute River
   
     
 
   

Contact Us

 

Home
About Us
Meetings/Events
Techniques
Statistics
Resources
News
Articles