BCJ_WINTER18 Digital Edition

END OF THE LINE
SKAGIT SALVATION
THE GUY WAS CLEARLY DRUNK, either off the Olympias
strewn about the jet sled hull or the five large, native winter-run
steelhead he claimed to have landed that day. Probably a bit of
both, and why not? He’d been teaching a boondogging doctoral
course from the bow – not running the outboard tiller. Paul and
I watched him wrangle two of said steelhead, each 15 pounds or
better, in the few times we were in eyesight of the other boat, so it
was tough to dismiss his story. He hooked one chromer in a run
we had just fished diligently.
After holding forth to us 17-year-old, greenhorn steelheaders
about his day on the Skagit River and our shortcomings, the professor
made a sharp segue to love and relationships. Paul and I
haven’t followed the advice he lay before us like it was gold, but
we still laugh about it a decade later. It’s a vulgar thread strangely
tied to brighter, more vivid memories, like smelling the pad of my
right thumb literally melting off against the friction of a rapidly
unwinding monofilament spool on my Abu Garcia Ambassaduer
reel earlier that day, as I tried to slow the flight of my first
winter-run steelhead – a seven-pound, red-striped buck above the
Sauk Confluence (pictured). A few miles downstream, we watched
a 20-plus-pounder throw Paul’s hook merely 10 feet away.
That was March of 2007, our senior year of high school. Only
two months later, on May 11, all Puget Sound native steelhead
populations were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species
Act. In 2010, WDFW shut off the late winter steelhead sport
fishery in the Skagit, like all of the region’s other rivers, closing
the entire basin after the hatchery runs at the end of January to
protect what few native steelhead still returned to spawn.
While arguably necessary, that closure was a huge blow to the
fishermen of Western Washington and the broader American angling
culture. It was that river, that fishery, which led the likes of
Ed Ward, Dec Hogan and others to start using 12-weight fly lines
with short, modified Spey rods, eventually coming to be known
as the Skagit style of Spey casting and tackle. Today there’s only
three generally accepted styles: Traditional/Scottish, Scandinavian
and Skagit. Those guys created a new segment of the sport and
industry of fly fishing trying to throw enormous flies and heavy
sinking lines in order to reach and entice winter steelhead within
the Skagit’s glacial, torrential depths.
From the highrises of Pioneer Square to the rainforested wilderness
of the Quinault Valley, fishing is deeply imbued in the culture
of Western Washington. For generations, there was perhaps no
watershed nor fish more famous than the Skagit and her steelhead.
And Seattle was the fastest growing metropolis in the country for
several decades running, so Concrete and Marblemount, just a few
hours from the big city, could see enormous fishing pressure.
Some may have stopped fishing, but true steelheaders are notoriously
difficult to discourage. They – we – have gone in droves to
the Olympic Peninsula, the state’s last opportunity to swing for native
winter-runs beneath Sitka spruce and a crisp, March sunrise.
Predictably, those fisheries have tanked, too. It may not be long before
they also face listing decisions and the attendant regulations.
Fishermen, casting flies and lures without hooks, have staged
demonstrations at the Howard Miller Steelhead Park every April
since 2012, during the closed late winter season. They call it “Occupy
Skagit” and advocate for reopening a tightly managed, catchand-release
steelhead season. The Skagit’s native populations have
been on the rebound since the court-mandated ban on releasing
hatchery-raised steelhead and the sport fishery closure. In 2016,
7,918 native steelhead returned to the Skagit and its tributaries,
up from a gutter below 3,000 fish in 2009 and well above the 20-
year average.
With the help of Patagonia’s World Trout Fund, BHA has waded
into the muddy waters of Evergreen State steelhead policy to
advocate for science-based management, native species, fair chase
fishing and public angling opportunity. In 2012, WDFW designated
the Sol Duc River as its first Wild Steelhead Gene Bank,
a measure that precludes planting detrimental, hatchery-raised
fish in the stream. Fourteen rivers have now been given the same
protection. Many conservationist anglers believe the Skagit, with
intensive habitat restoration and a rebounding native population,
would be a perfect candidate. Gene bank designation, coupled
with a reopening of the late winter catch-and-release season,
would help alleviate some of the incredible fishing pressure occurring
on the Olympic Peninsula while allowing the anglers who
restore habitat and advocate for steelhead to engage once again
with their favorite fish.
“The Skagit is the epicenter of Pacific Northwest steelheading,
especially with a fly rod. It’s where our sport began,” said Chase
Gunnell, conservation chair for Washington BHA. “It’s living
proof that wild fish can recover given the chance. It’s our best hope
for a new paradigm in fisheries management, one that balances
sustainable angling with conservation oriented management.”
The Skagit, Sauk, Samish, Stillaguamish, Skykomish, Snohomish,
Snoqualmie – even some rivers that don’t start with the letter
S – made me who I am. That thumb-melting little steelhead, that
March morning playing hooky, helped form twin passions that
would come to define my life. Fishing for native steelhead, one of
the most imperiled sportfish in the country, is a pursuit marked
by dedication – not only to standing waist deep in surging, glacial
torrents for the duration of a sleet-ridden winter day but also to
conserve the utterly singular trout that drive us to do it.
-Sam Lungren, editor
62 | BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL WINTER 2018