FY 2023 Skokomish Salmon Harvest Management

This project will provide support for the harvest manager to ensure harvest rates are in line with recovery strategies. Primary tasks include pre-season harvest planning and in-season catch monitoring and management for Chinook, coho, summer and fall chum, and steelhead fisheries. Pre-season activities will include stock assessment, abundance forecasts, cohort analyses and modeling of regulations in development of an annual management plan for each species.

This project addresses factors limiting the productivity of ESA-listed Pacific salmonids as specified in the Skokomish River Recovery Plan (2010). The Puget Sound Chinook Harvest Management Plan (2010) defines actions with an immediate focus on early-timed Chinook while considering options for the recovery of late-timed Chinook. To that end, the Skokomish River Recovery Plan defines a total exploitation rate ceiling (of 50 percent) on its natural component, with further constraints on fisheries if natural escapement is forecasted to be below 800. Future options for recovery of a late-timed population depend upon the success of efforts to recover early-timed Chinook. The pre-season planning step develops the fishing regime in Washington waters