By Pepper Fisher
ELWHA RIVER – The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe’s first Coho fishery on an Elwha River unimpeded by dams in more than 100 years got underway last week.
Most of the river had been blocked to fish migration by the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams until they were torn down by 2014. Since then, Tribal, national park and state officials have been monitoring the river, waiting for a salmon run healthy enough to be fished on a limited scale.
It is a very limited fishery for Tribal and subsistence usage— just 400 Coho out of a total run of an estimated 7,000. The allowed method of fishing is by pole and line, until later this week, when net fishing across half of the river will be used until the fish limit of 400 is complete.
We spoke with Tribal Chairwoman Frances Charles and Vice Chairman Russ Hepfer about how the fishing was going after one week, and what it means to Tribe members to return to fishing after a long, voluntary hiatus. Here’s Chairwoman Charles on the Tribe’s October 9 opening day celebration on the river.
“It was really inspired. Very, very powerful to see what was taking place on our celebration. But, just the glows and the smiles of our elders, happy tears that we’ve seen, and watching the little ones, having a few them get a fish on the hook, and it was a joyful day for everybody. So, we’re looking forward to seeing it expand more in the future, and it’s something that we wanted to do for our community, and jointly, in the future, as we grow, to open it up to everybody.”
Vice Chairman Hepfer said, as of Monday, October 16, about 50 salmon had been caught using rod and reel, and 125 people had signed up for a permit, including a lot of the younger ones.
“They are. My son went down there. He’s 17, and his group of friends went down, and I’m excited about that because they’re young and I’m glad they want to go fishing. So, but we’re excited to see people heading down the river every day. I’m pretty happy that we caught 50 fish, but I think that just goes to show you that, traditionally, we didn’t use fishing poles.”
Hepfer said this year’s estimate of 7,000 returning Cohos is still growing, and the numbers show steady improvement over the last few years. He said they’ll likely go to using nets across a portion of the river this week in the hopes of reaching that goal of 400 salmon.
“We call this a C&S fishery but, in reality, it’s a test fishery, because we’re sampling literally every fish that’s caught. They measure them, and determine what sex they are, take scales, see if they got imprints in them. And sure, they’re looking at every fish. So, we will be taking a look at when we can put in the nets, because we want to hit that 400 number for the data.”
Hepfer wanted to be sure to give credit where it’s due to those who worked and sacrificed to get to this historic time on the Elwha River.
“I want to thank our co-managers, the State Department of Fish and Wildlife. We worked together to come up with this 400-fish catch limit, and they said, “We want you to go first.” And then we’ll talk about co-managing and allowing sport fishermen in the next year. I also want to thank our Tribal fishermen. When the moratorium started, our Council was to have the sad tale of, “Hey, you can’t fish the Elwha, because we’re trying to recover salmon.” But they came to us and said, “We don’t want to fish.” And now, they have a chance to get back in the river. Not like it was, but at least we’re back in the river. So there’s a lot of thanks that has to go around.”
(Photo courtesy of Russ Hepfer. Left to right. Chris Tom-Vice Chairman Port Gamble Tribe, Matt Ives-Councilman Port Gamble Tribe, Russ Hepfer, Frances Charles and Mellissa Gillman.)