I think the lack of transparency is part of the problem. With C&R Recs take less wild winter Steelhead than the nation by a mile but with the Wynoochee Summerrun program the Rec jumps way out in front. You cannot be selective with a gillnet and the wild returns govern harvest regardless of how many hatchery fish are available.

Now on the other hand with such a huge AK & BC harvest in the marine waters on Chinook it leaves few Chinook impacts. The Recs are limited by the GH Policy sometimes and then the fact that a thousand or less fish does not allow a fishery as we would burn that in rather short order limiting Coho fishing. So from the cheap seats the nation appears to take it not as foregone opportunity but harvest available.

A friend of mine is convinced that a unofficial trade Steelhead for Chinook has been going on for sometime! I do not know and frankly since the meeting years back that the damn gillnetters interrupted the harvest negotiations rather than observe as they were supposed to so none of us know. Oh, that is the reason the QIN said no public from then on and I imagine in the years since that WDFW is perfectly comfortable with the public locked out also.