Sorry that I've been behind the curve on this thread. Purposely recused myself from participating due to the typical way this subject goes sideways FAST in a predictably polarizing fashion.

This one has taken a much more cordial turn, moving the merits of selective fishing forward....and so here I am.

The singular constraint on gillnets accessing harvestable wild Chehalis coho in Grays Harbor is wild Chehalis fall chinook impact. Fall chinook were forecast at Tier 1.... total run-size at or below 110% of escapement. In that scenario, the fisheries are to be manged such that no more than 10% of the run is incidentally killed by all parties. The state assumes it has a 50% share in the conservation burden and so it structures its fisheries so as to cap chinook mortalities to no more than 5% of total run-size. Logically one would assume the tribe is responsible for managing the other 5%, but that's another matter altogether.

So in that sense, it is very similar to the situation of LCR spring chinook in capping the fishery based on impact. However, the abundance-based Tier Plan for Grays Harbor preferentially allocates chinook impact to the recreational fishery at the lowest levels of run-size forecast. We have included specific language in the gillnet fishery that states "without reducing the recreational fishery". Basically that means using the available 5% chinook impact on a Tier 1 chinook run-size forecast to fully fund the recreational harvest of a Tier 4 coho run-size forecast. Once that has been satisfied, any remaining available chinook impact could be spent on getting some days for the commercial fleet. In the case of 2010, there were enough expendable chinook to fund two days of NON-treaty gillnetting.... about 56 dead chinook per day is what the model predicts.

At larger chinook run-size forecasts, the gillnets get a progressively bigger share. At the point at which we have roughly 3000 harvestable chinook (surplus to escapement goal) the fish are allocated roughly equally. At run-sizes significantly exceeding that level of surplus, the allocation preference then shifts to the gillnets.... but again with the stipulation that a fully liberalized recreational fishery in NOT reduced.