BY ANDY WALGAMOTT, NORTHWEST SPORTSMAN MAGAZINE
Updated 7:04 p.m., Thursday, January 29, 2026, with comments from WDFW in the 24th paragraph, i.e., the one just above the pic of the lad with the Cowlitz winter-run.
A bipartisan bill directing WDFW to fire up wild steelhead-based “broodstock conservation programs” on all Washington rivers with native runs received a public hearing in Olympia today.
Such integrated local programs have become highly coveted as the state’s steelhead fisheries have been impacted by declining returns and Endangered Species Act listings and subsequent court settlements that have negatively affected hatchery production based on the out-of-basin stocks that fueled the robust seasons of yore.
So anglers, guides, sportfishing organizations and others are rallying in support of Senate Bill 6241, and more than 1,530 people cast their lot in as pro on the two-page bill ahead of this afternoon’s hearing before the Senate Agriculture & Natural Resources Committee.
Prime sponsor Senator John Braun (R-Centralia) is touting the bill as he gears up to challenge US Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-3) for her seat in Congress this fall. Both are angling for fishermen’s votes in a pretty purple district rich with sporting opportunities, with Gluesenkamp Perez recently advocating for a more expedited, cheaper sea lion removal process to protect salmon and steelhead.
Braun said the idea came from a group of Southwest Washington anglers familiar with similar programs operated on the Oregon Coast’s Wilson, Siletz and Alsea Rivers. Typically, a set number of wild steelhead pairs are captured and spawned, and their progeny are reared in a hatchery, clipped and released for anglers to later catch.
He said there were a lot good reasons to think it could be a good tool for the Evergreen State, as the Beaver State sees high survival rates in returning adults and no loss in genetic diversity among native fish.
Other cosponsors include Republican Senators Matt Boehnke (Kennewick), Perry Dozier (Walla Walla) and Keith Wagoner (Sedro-Wooley) and Democrat Senators Bob Hasegawa (Seattle) and Lisa Wellman (Mercer Island).
Among those speaking in favor of the bill today was Nello Picinich of the Coastal Conservation Association of Washington, one of the groups involved in the successful annual King of the Reach fall Chinook broodstock collection effort on the Mid-Columbia.
Picinich termed the Oregon steelhead programs “repeatable and scalable … We have the template to follow.”
He said there were dozens of tributaries where it was feasible, and said it could “start immediately” on the Washougal River outside Vancouver.
Angler Carter Barnes pointed out that the bill would use angler volunteers to collect broodstock steelhead for spawning, saving money. Increasing the number of open fisheries would help spread out pressure as well, he said.
Ryan Swanson of Southwest Washington said the quality of the state’s steelhead fisheries had dropped “dramatically” in the last 10 years, with anglers like himself having to travel “great distances” to find fish. He said Puget Sound could benefit from it, and he asked senators to move the bill out of committee.
But it wasn’t all first-cast bobber-downs.
Jonathan Stumpf of Trout Unlimited, which has advocated for both hatchery and wild fish and fisheries, said his organization was opposed to a “blanket, one-size-fits-all approach” for steelhead hatcheries, and that production decisions should be based on “biological, ecological, and social conditions – or science-based management – by managers at WDFW, treaty tribes, and where applicable, NOAA Fisheries” rather than by tweaking the Revised Codes of Washington via SB 6241.
And David Moskowitz of Portland, who has long championed wild fish for various orgs, disputed the success of those Oregon programs. He said that angler-caught steelhead used for broodstock purposes have fewer “viable” eggs than those that swim into the hatchery trap by themselves. He said there wasn’t a good track record for a potential Washington program, and he called the proposal “expensive.”
IT’S HARD NOT TO LIKE A BILL that focuses attention so squarely on the state fish and rejuvenating this storied fishery in Washington, but a fiscal note attached to it shows it comes with snaggy, gear-gobbling rootwads and – crap! – is that a spruce across the river up ahead?!?
The note estimates that, as proposed, the program would cost the state $14.6 million annually to implement and $29.3 million per two-year budget biennium. Money would come from the General Fund.
It assumes an average of 100,000 smolts released a year in each of 22 wild-steelhead-bearing watersheds where there aren’t already integrated broodstock programs.
Basins that are home to ESA-listed stocks and/or tribal fisheries would require both federally approved plans and comanager sign-off on programs, and development of hatchery management plans for all eligible watersheds would cost $4.9 million annually, according to the note.
Operational and staffing costs to accommodate increased production at hatchery facilities are estimated at $4.76 million a year. Required fish health monitoring would run $452,000, creel and spawner surveys another $4.5 million.
The note gives no estimate for capital costs – think hatchery infrastructure, water rights, whatnot – but describes it as “non-zero but indeterminate …”
Still, the idea does align with the direction WDFW is headed.
The agency has been leaning into wild steelhead broodstock programs and now has them in 14 watersheds, according to that fiscal note. It also wants to go that direction on the Snoqualmie and Bogachiel. Managers know that steelheading brings in money to not only agency coffers but local economies, ensures that fish and rivers have advocates beyond litigious dot-orgs, broadening and bolstering their support network, and serves up more than a few dinners and smoked snacks.
But as for this particular piece of legislation, WDFW Fish Program Director Kelly Cunningham said applying it as written across the board “will run afoul of legal obligations, will drive significant expense, and most importantly will not provide the desire conservation benefit for our Washington State fish.” He distinguished the bill’s use of the term “conservation program,” which in Washington is more associated with nonconsumptive hatchery efforts such as those on small Hood Canal rivers, from Oregon’s integrated production programs as well as poured cold water on some of the claims around that model, said implementing it would suck money from other priorities, and asked the committee not to advance the bill as currently written.
SB 6241’s G.LOOMIS PRICE TAG also comes at a time WDFW’s budget is hanging out in the bargain-bin aisle with the Banjo Minnows.
Last year, even as state lawmakers saddled Washington sportsmen with increased fishing and hunting license fees, they stripped away an equal amount of money from the agency’s General Fund disbursements, hurting fisheries.
Gone was funding for the Quicksilver Portfolio, which provided for catch-and-release steelhead fisheries on the Skagit and Sauk and supported related O. mykiss work, and legislators also failed to provide enough money to fund operations at the Skamania Hatchery outside Washougal, eliminating production of 161,000 steelhead and trout reared there.
Both of those were bitter blows for steelheaders, particularly the latter, where in late 2024 WDFW had received federal authorization to begin a wild broodstock steelhead program – exactly what SB 6241 is all about – but was forced to “terminate” it as well as request funding to decommission the hatchery entirely.
Fortunately, Governor Bob Ferguson’s 2026 supplemental budget did not include money for mothballing Skamania.
Senator Braun didn’t buy the estimates in the fiscal note on his bill, but acknowledged that a program costing $14 million a year wasn’t going to happen in the current budget climate.
Still, he said, “It would be foolish not to invest in a tool like this,” and he added that he had a substitute version that apparently will be introduced for next Monday’s Senate AGNR Committee executive session to move bills prior to the policy cutoff deadline.
Where it would be pretty damn onerous to start up steelhead broodstock programs in Pugetropolis – ask me about how much hassle getting the Skykomish summer-run one was – it may be a lot more doable on, say, a small river you already have the OK to do so from federal overseers, have a hatchery just sitting there begging to be used, and motivated local anglers.
Picinich said the broodstock program on Oregon’s Wilson only costs $250,000; WDFW has said it would take $667,000 a year to keep the Skamania Hatchery open.
Fingers crossed.
