Last Tuesday evening, anglers heard updates from fishery managers on the poor projected wild winter steelhead run numbers and potential regulations for the upcoming season on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula and SW Coast.
Broadly speaking, the news continues to be grim. Years of population declines, exacerbated by recent downturns in ocean productivity and survival, have continued. With a few notable exceptions, wild steelhead numbers are struggling across the coast. Anglers can, and should, expect less opportunity to fish these rivers during the Winter and Spring of 2021.
While we all wait for final decisions from managers, take a moment to read the Wild Steelhead Coalition’s summary of the data and options presented at the meeting and their call for a management paradigm shift on the coast’s wild steelhead rivers.
