Seattle Times fishing section/weekly article

[A9]

I figured I'd let some people know about these general little articles that Mark Yuasa from the Seattle Times puts out every week. They are not much more then a general recap of what's going on and then he gives brief reports about the most common and popular fisheries in the state.

Like in this article which I will attach an address to below, he talks about what lakes are planted and how many fish per lake, and then gives some reports regarding Springers in the Columbia, Lingcod off the coast, Salmon in Puget Sound waters, Steelheading, and a sturgeon report as well...

He puts em out every week and while they aren't super detailed, they are a pretty general report and are definitely better then the WDFW weekender report in my opinion. I find em worth the read and I figured I'd share it with you all...

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/o ... ish27.html

[michaelunbewust]

THANKS SAM! I ALWAYS CHECK THE WEEKENDER REPORT FROM THE WDFW SITE, THE FISHING-N-HUNTING NEWS, THE BIGWALLY'S FISHING REPORT, MARDON RESORTS WEEKLY FISHING REPORT, SO, I WILL ADD THIS TO MY ARSENAL!!

[Shad_Eating_Grin]

--

[gpc]

Cool good stuff Sam. I thought they had a fishing reort but I could never find it on their website. The tacoma news tribune also has fishing reports

[A9]

Cool good stuff Sam. I thought they had a fishing reort but I could never find it on their website. The tacoma news tribune also has fishing reports

It's in the paper every week I believe. If you search "fishing" on Seattletimes website then you can find it. The title of the articles always start like this:
Fishing | (Title of article)

[Mike Carey]

The guy in Tacoma actually quotes WashingtonLakes.com as a source, pretty cool. Mark Y has never responded to me. :-(

I guess we aren't big enough yet. Maybe we need 5,000 fishing reports per year instead of 3,273.

At least he quotes my guide friend, Anton Jones.

I know, if he gets a couple hundred e-mails from WL.com members maybe he'll use our reports.

[kuttkilla]

The guy in Tacoma actually quotes WashingtonLakes.com as a source, pretty cool. Mark Y has never responded to me. :-(

I think both the Seattle Times and the Tacoma News Tribune keep a close eye on fishing reports posted on this website. For one, they just mentioned that cutthroat fishing was good off Kirkland. Wonder where they got that? Many times articles composed draw from a knowledge base, rather it be fishermen/women they know, or a local website that has a "pulse" on local fishing. They of course keep in good touch with local tackle shops like 3 Rivers Marine, or Auburn Sports and Marine... and to this end, quote many of their seasoned anglers. I think WashingtonLakes.com is the best source for current information, in my opinion.

[kevinb]

The guy in Tacoma actually quotes WashingtonLakes.com as a source, pretty cool. Mark Y has never responded to me. :-(

I think both the Seattle Times and the Tacoma News Tribune keep a close eye on fishing reports posted on this website. For one, they just mentioned that cutthroat fishing was good off Kirkland. Wonder where they got that? Many times articles composed draw from a knowledge base, rather it be fishermen/women they know, or a local website that has a "pulse" on local fishing. They of course keep in good touch with local tackle shops like 3 Rivers Marine, or Auburn Sports and Marine... and to this end, quote many of their seasoned anglers. I think WashingtonLakes.com is the best source for current information, in my opinion.

You know,just for fun:-" we should start talking about the awesome fishing in Soap Lake.

[iPodrodder]

Yeah, or the sturgeon fishery in Sammamish.

Sweet, 700 posts.

[Mike Carey]

The guy in Tacoma actually quotes WashingtonLakes.com as a source, pretty cool. Mark Y has never responded to me. :-(

I think both the Seattle Times and the Tacoma News Tribune keep a close eye on fishing reports posted on this website. For one, they just mentioned that cutthroat fishing was good off Kirkland. Wonder where they got that? Many times articles composed draw from a knowledge base, rather it be fishermen/women they know, or a local website that has a "pulse" on local fishing. They of course keep in good touch with local tackle shops like 3 Rivers Marine, or Auburn Sports and Marine... and to this end, quote many of their seasoned anglers. I think WashingtonLakes.com is the best source for current information, in my opinion.

I saw that as well and can't help but think he was reading your reports. For all I know Mark is a member on this website. I'm just waiting for the day I see in his weekly article "Fishing reports on WashingtonLakes.com are indicating lake Washington is fishing well for cutthroat trout". That would be the honest way of reporting it. What do ya say, Mark?

[A9]

The guy in Tacoma actually quotes WashingtonLakes.com as a source, pretty cool. Mark Y has never responded to me. :-(

I think both the Seattle Times and the Tacoma News Tribune keep a close eye on fishing reports posted on this website. For one, they just mentioned that cutthroat fishing was good off Kirkland. Wonder where they got that? Many times articles composed draw from a knowledge base, rather it be fishermen/women they know, or a local website that has a "pulse" on local fishing. They of course keep in good touch with local tackle shops like 3 Rivers Marine, or Auburn Sports and Marine... and to this end, quote many of their seasoned anglers. I think WashingtonLakes.com is the best source for current information, in my opinion.

I saw that as well and can't help but think he was reading your reports. For all I know Mark is a member on this website. I'm just waiting for the day I see in his weekly article "Fishing reports on WashingtonLakes.com are indicating lake Washington is fishing well for cutthroat trout". That would be the honest way of reporting it. What do ya say, Mark?

Shoot him an email...
I'm sure he has a seattletimes.com email address that is public..

[kuttkilla]

I saw that as well and can't help but think he was reading your reports. For all I know Mark is a member on this website. I'm just waiting for the day I see in his weekly article "Fishing reports on WashingtonLakes.com are indicating lake Washington is fishing well for cutthroat trout". That would be the honest way of reporting it. What do ya say, Mark?

I'm sure they read our reports on here...perhaps they are too, themselves, members. I'm puzzled by why he would not respond to you...maybe his e-mail address was invalid? Sometimes that does happen and he can't control it. I haven't met him in person, but I have e-mailed a high up official with NOAA fisheries about the cutthroat trout population in Lake Washington and I will post what he responded when I get a minute here...his name was Kurt Fresh from NOAA fisheries in Seattle, WA. He's a really great guy. I know they read our reports, because this is the best website for up-to-date fishing reports. It's because of many people's excellent reports that we are all able to enjoy our fishing experiences and plan ahead...give me a second here and I'll locate that article from Kurt (NOAA Fisheries Biologist).

Ah, here we go: here is Kurt's response to my email (it's long, but good):

Dear Adriens,

Thanks for taking the time to send your email. While there are clearly more things to
learn about cutthroat in the system, I have moved on to other topics of research. Most
of the science being done in LWA is not on cutthroat trout. I am not sure why. My
compliments. You clearly have the catching part of cutthroat trout down pretty well.
Great looking fish in your pictures. I have never understood why the cutthroat fishery
was not a major focus of the lake's (and stream for that matter) management but I think
the state has never really stepped to the plate to promote it. I think one reason is
WDFW's fear of what it might do to steelhead (are there any left, another story for
another day). Cutthroat trout are a pretty cool fish and I think are very important to
the current dynamics of the Lake Washington system. In researching cutthroat in the
system, we found no record of cutthroat even being present in the lake through the 1970s.
There was lots of gillnetting and trawling in those day and no catches of cutthroat trout
were recorded that we could find. While not proof, it does suggest they were very rare
or absent at that time. During the last 40 years, they have become the dominant fish
eating fish in the system. This is likely because they thrive in the urban streams that
dominant the LWA ecosystem and were not present 40 years ago. Cutthroat in this system
spawn in the creeks and juveniles enter the lake as either one or two year old fish.
Cutthroat clearly have a huge effect on the populations of most every other creature in
the system. Top predators such as cutthroat have enormous influences on sizes,
composition, fluctuations and so on of fish and invertebrates. We think they have a
major affect on sockeye salmon which was why we got interested in the fish in the first
place.

The following are some observations/comments on your email, in no particular order. I
could probably have done a better job at integrating these comments into a more cohesive
response, but it is the end of a long week. Feel free to fire back in response.

1. Sea run cutthroat trout are clearly present in the system. We have seen them around
the locks and caught bright, ocean looking fish on occasion. Your sea lice are a good
indicator. Note, our study was not designed to identify this life history type or study
it explicitly. I suspect there were sea runs mixed in with some of our catches.

2. Determining the origin of a cutthroat (e.g. is it sea run) is very hard without
killing it. We cannot use scales. It usually requires a look at the otoliths. I do not
even think we can use genetics.

3. Our study results did not say that large fish were not present in the littoral zone of
the lake. In fact there were times when we caught large numbers of large fish. I recall
one haul of nearly 30 cutthroat > 15inches we caught in one seine haul near the mouth of
Thorton Creek.

4. Your inference is that cutthroat are more abundant in the littoral area because you
catch more or they are easier to catch (not sure which applies, maybe both statements are
true). While it is possible that you are correct, I think it is more likely that fish
are more catchable in the littoral, not necessarily more abundant. Angling tends to be a
very biased way of catching fish, from the perspective of using it as a sampling tool.
Anglers tend to fish in areas where fish can be caught, which does not mean they are more
abundant in that area. They may be more concentrated in a place or you may be catching
them in a place where they are feeding actively.

5. We did not attempt to estimate
population in littoral or limnetic areas. Small catches in a large area (the limnetic)
can translate into more fish than large catches (by seine) in a smaller area the littoral.

6. While the questions you raise are interesting about the large fish, what was more
interesting and more definitive was that we found very few small fish in the limnetic
zone. Smaller fish, including those entering the lake from watershed streams, appear to
spend much of their time in the littoral zone until they have acquired some size.

7. Our sample sizes in some strata were in fact small. Good point but that was what we
found.

8. Anglers can provide much useful information. I have seen some studies that did
detailed analysis fishermen logbooks and found many interesting things. We did not do
this, simply because that was not a part of our research. It may be very useful for
someone to do.

9. Finally, science and learning often occurs in small, baby steps. Learning is often
incremental. Quite often the results of one work are used to develop another study. And
another and so on. So, our work was not intended to be final word on cutthroat.
Hopefully, it is only the jumping off point for more work.

Take care and good fishing.

kurt fresh
noaa fisheries, nwfsc
seattle, wa

[kuttkilla]

Kurt is very well respected and understood. He speaks with some good authority on the subject. It was nice to have a fisheries biologist review the fishery.

[Mike Carey]

Fasinating e-mail KuttKilla

Sam, I have e-mailed him with no response. I gave him a head's up last year when some of the huge lakeTapps muskie were being reported on.

I'm not too serious about this - would be nice to get the print recognition but I'm not losing sleep over it. It would be funny if he read this thread and mentioned us.

[kuttkilla]

would be nice to get the print recognition but I'm not losing sleep over it.

You could also contact: CRAIG HILL]gpc[/b] had shown me the Tacoma News Tribune site, and that was cool!