CFM,

You're right about that. But that's not the unestimated catch. It's those anglers who catch fish, slide them under the floorboards or stash them at bank access sites to be picked up later, instead of into the fish box and don't punch their punch cards. So if censused, they show up as zeros in the creel check survey, and are part of the sample of anglers/boats/cars on the river, and serve to underestimate total sport catch. The result is that WDFW's catch estimation method does not extrapolate to include all fish harvested. The upshot is that we don't know what the total treaty or non-treaty harvests really are. What we have is an "index" of harvest, based on reported catch and catch estimates based on data. The rest may never be known.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.