CFM, as you likely know now, your registration is in lockdown mode. Not booted yet, but as I made clear in my PM to you, I'm sick and tired of coming home from fishing to see who you're arguing with ... maybe I'll change my mind down the road on it, so I left the registration intact.

There

Bugle, since you asked so nicely , I'll be happy to address your question from my point of view:

If a system can't meet escapement, then it ought to be shut down for all types of fishing ... I have no issue with that at all.

What we have on the coast right now (basically the affected streams), is a fishery that has seen a very large increase in pressure in recent years for a number of reasons.

We have some pretty special strains of fish that boot out more trophy class winter-runs than other other areas.

We have seen a slight increase in sport harvest in recent years despite lowering the daily / annual limit ... I won't talk about the "poaching" factor.

We have had five straight years of decline in our escapement, from what we've seen this year, probably six.

One river (the Hoh) has failed to make escapement approximately 50% of the time over the last 12 years ... yet with C&R regs in place, even with mortality, we would have made escapement in each case and no total closures as we have seen.

We have some left, but not even close to what we once had ... do we continue the status quo until we get to the point where we HAVE to shut everything down completely.

Or, do we reduce our impact by roughly 90-95% and continue to have long seasons with presure spread out and plenty of hatchery fish to harvest in the first half of the winter and springers late in the run.

Obviously, a pretty simple decision for me.

Frankly, given the tribes' impact and the increaded pressure, I don't think we'll be able to see this fisheries support the status quo for too many years.

I may be wrong ... we may be wrong But, will it hurt the fish to err on their side for a change? Lots and lots of anglers in other parts of the state that can no longer even wet a line might wish WDFW hadn't waited as long in their area.

We must have the fish to go fishing