Thats right grandpa and after personally talking with more than one tribe over the last couple of days, I'm more convinced now than ever that it is fact.

Anyone jumping on this bandwagon because they believe it will help them with their battle against the tribes better wake up.

I'm beginning to believe that the tribes are the least of my worries.

There is a difference between the moritorium and CNR as you should be able to see as there will be no CNR on the Sky and Stilly. It would not bother me a bit if there was a total closure to steelhead fishing after March 1st. But I think that it is important to have the opportunity to fish CNR if the stocks are strong enough to support the CNR mortality In the next couple of years you are going to see some far reaching changes in wild and hatchery fish management. The old days are gone!!!!

Jerry ~ I've read your post about 20 times now.

I think were very close to agreement.

I'm not sure, I'm going to have to read your post some more.

Of course they will. They have nothing to lose by doing so and more to gain (however little it may be). Let's face it, the only people who would complain about them doing so would be the sportsmen, and since, apperantly, we're more worried about "house cleaning" than saving more fish, we won't be able to form an alliance to fight them and the public just won't care. It's lose/lose for us. It's all about money and let's face it, fishermen are the cheapest bunch of people there are. You could get 10 gun owners to donate more money to save their sport than you could get from 1000 fishermen.

Copy it and put it under your pillow Bruce, it may take a couple of days but I'm sure you'll see things in a whole new way.

Well said Jacob!

It would not bother me a bit if there was a total closure to steelhead fishing after March 1st. But I think that it is important to have the opportunity to fish CNR if the stocks are strong enough to support the CNR mortality.
------------

Actually Jerry, I can't seem to quite grasp what you are saying in the above statement.

Anyway it's not important, if you support a mandatory statewide release policy, we'll never agree anyway. I've learned a few things from this very informative thread (like to keep an eye on you guys) I've got to hand it to Todd and WSC, I've been following them for years since they started up and even at that time their main agenda was statewide mandatory cnr. I didn't think they could pull it off but they did. Only time will tell now...(unless there is an repeal)

Other than AuntyM's words of infinite wisdom, this has really been a good discussion. Good points have been made on both sides. I'm not sure theres much more left to hash out.

Tight Lines!

I will have to say Todd is one smooooooth talker.For getting AuntyM to change her mind on this topic.Or has hell Frozen over

Ok Todd

I had a little time today to read over what you and have posted. You may or may not be right about; did the Commission "break the law", but in my opinion, they sure did break their own "polices" as stated in the WSP.

Let's look at it one step at a time!

1 ) under Performance Standards it says "Harvest management will be responsive to annual fluctuations in abundance of salmonids, and will be designed to meet any requirements for sharing of harvest opportunity."

Policy wise; that would tell me, that the Commission must review WDFW recommendations on harvest at MSY as stated in the WSP, and must be quick to respond and consider all forms of "harvest" sharing needs among the users groups. A C&R fishery is still a form of harvest because it does reduce the populations of species, by the actions of a certain user group. Even if it is the lesser form of harvest, it's still a harvest on a population of fish. Like they Say, a dead fish is a dead fish.

2) The allowable incidental harvest impact on populations shall be addressed in existing preseason and in-season planning processes as described in policy number 1.

Policy wise; this would tell me that the Commission must address what the "allowable" harvest impacts levels are for each river unit. It also tells me that they still must be required to maintain an over escapement of wild steelhead as defined the WSP. They are mandated by the WSP to maintain harvest levels at MSY, unless escapement projections fall short. They have not fell short on several rivers.

So far we are not that far apart what the "Commission" is authorized to do.

Number 3 is where you and I have big difference of opinions!
You said;
You go on to say this about #3;
If the desired abundance (escapement) on several of these rivers is reached and is being met, then the WSP requires that it must be manage for MSY. You say "(2) avoid impacts by eliminating encounters with weak populations" If these stocks are meeting and are exceeding the abundance escapement goals, then #2 does not apply. And now that equation must then be considered by the Commission. When you look at what you have said about #3 "if desired abundance is not being met, priority will be given to fisheries that are more selective either by using more selective gear or fishing in times/places where there will be less encounters of depressed fish.",You can start to see the conflict here (I hope)!

Certainly, even you must admit that several of these rivers did not fall into the category of #3. So now the question becomes; why did the Commission go against their own policy on rivers that have achived their abundance goals?

I then attempted to show you how the Commission has failed to follow their WSP by stating this;

Your reply to this was; "Ok, we're missing lots of stuff that comes right before the quoted sections, but we'll work with it...

Management units will be defined in one of many ways, which can be modified if they both agree, escapements will be set at appropriate levels, for long term production that sustains harvest (*this means "commercial harvest"*), recreational opportunities (*this means "recreational harvest"*), and ecological benefits (other ecosystems/animals that depend on salmon being in the river, like eagles and bears). Exceptions to this can be made if there are certain needs of low productivity runs (they can agree to higher escapements or lower harvests if the runs need it).

Again, no application to WSR regulations...it just says how escapements are set, and why they're set."

If you tie this in with what has been stated above, the picture becomes even clearer. The WSR policy is governed by the policy set forth in the WSP. Let's cross each of these bridges before either of us waste anymore of our time or efforts!

Too much, to soon, will not let people see where our differences really are.

Let's take one step- one section at a time!
Your turn

Cowlitzfisherman

CFM,

Let's see if I'm following you...

1. If a river is making escapement, it...
2. Must be managed by MSY, which means...
3. There must be a harvest fishery.

Since a few rivers are making escapement, they must be managed by MSY, and not having directed harvest seasons violates the policy?

How am I doing so far?

Fish on...

Todd

Bob,

Not trying any spinnin'...I thought that was what you were trying to say.

I am, however, going to pass on the offer to make your argument for you. As I asked above, just spit it out...the shorter, the better.

If you're trying to make a point about what the WSP says about the hypothetical I posed, just make it so I can figger out whatcher sayin'.

Fish on...

Todd

Bob,

I'm not trying to be unfair...it's just that you obviously have a point somewhere in there, you think you already know where the Commission erred, yet you keep asking me where they did. I've already said they didn't.

I'll bite again, though...

Here's what the WSP says about that...

1. Escapements are set.
2. Fish over escapement are "harvestable", using the MSY model.
3. The "harvestable" portion of the run is divided up, half for the tribal fishers and half for the non-tribal fishers.

**The non-tribal share has already been apportioned between commercial and sport fisheries at the North of Falcon meetings**

4. The tribal fishers net their half.
5. Our half is either netted by commercials or fished for by sportfishermen.

We'll leave the tribal and non-tribal commercial parts out, since I don't think (?) that we're worried about them right now.

6. Sport fisheries are constructed to take advantage of the sport fishing allocation. If they estimate that there are, say, 500 fish in the allocation, they can use different management philosophies to use the allocation. They could have a three day fishery with a three fish limit (they would have numbers saying that this be the most they could fish without going over the limit).

They could have a two week season with a one fish limit (the numbers would show that fishing effort would be slightly reduced, so the season would be more than three times as long with one third the limit).

Finally, they could have a two month season, with WSR, figuring that incidental mortalities will satisfy the sportfishermen's opportunity to fish.

The final option is the exact one the WDFW chose to do on the Chehalis system last spring when it had a greater than predicted run of wild winter run steelhead.

They proposed two different kill seasons, both at different, but shorter, times (a week, I think), and they proposed a WSR season, in which you could still harvest hatchery fish, for a month.

They went with the third one...it had a much longer season, more people could participate, the positive economic impacts would be much greater, more hatchery fish would be harvested over the month than would be in a week, and more wild fish made it to the spawning grounds.

Removing the OP exceptions from the statewide wild steelhead release regulations is a very similar decision...and just as legal as the one they made last year on the Chehalis.

And that Bob, is what the WSP says about that!

Are we getting there yet?

Fish on...

Todd

Wow long thread. Personally I am all for this outlaw on harvesting wild steelhead. Anyways onbe comment i have heard quite a bit from people against this rule is that there is no evidence of CnR helping runs. Over and over I read that even with CnR on so many rivers the runs are still dropping so this isn't based in science. Then I hear from these same people concern about the hatcheries being removed. So I ask why the concern about CnR for wild steelhead not helping rebuild runs yet hatcheries on rivers all over this state are still doing nothing to help rebuild many runs? Seems to me that hatcheries have been in effect over a longer time than CnR yet they have done nothing to stop the downward trend of so many populations.

Cupo,

You're killin' me, man!

Bob,

I am enjoying this, actually, we always have pretty good conversations...even if we have to agree to disagree by the end. It's all good, especially if it gets more people to think about what's going on around them in the fisheries management world.

How's the Cowlitz FHMP stuff going?

Fish on...

Todd.

Ok I have an Idea that might change your perspective on the law change. With a very good suggestion I think everybody here could agree with.


Lets say there are only four rivers that this new reg effects. Those four rivers have been putting out enough fish to have more fish return then what was needed to support the run, those are harvestable fish. Now the sportfishermen have been denied the privilage to those harvestable fish. Therfore the tribes can petition the state for those fish and the state cannot deny that petition because it is a fact that those rivers have harvestable wild steelhead. Those harvestable wild steelhead now become part of the tribes qouta. It doesnt matter how they are caught, the fact that they are dead is what matters. This is why I am so against this law that takes the privilage of non tribal members to keep harvestable wild steelhead away. We have gained absolutely nothing. We have done absolutely nothing to save wild steelhead with this law. Its a big FARCE.

The biggest thing we can do to save wild steelhead right now is to update the scientific data to reflect a higher number of returning fish is needed to support the runs. This will in effect lower statistically the numbers of harvestable fish. The tribes cannot petition the state successfully for fish needed to meet escapement. This would cause a statewide mandatory catch and release season I would agree with.

Micro,

This is posted just above...

That's most of the reason why the new reg is OK, legally, and why foregone opportunity doesn't have any bad applications.

The only way FO could apply is if there was a harvestable allocation for the non-tribal fisheries and it wasn't fished over at all. Otherwise, it doesn't apply. Legally, it can't.

I asked you before to cite one example of where foregone opportunity gave away our fish to the tribal fisheries. I also wanted to remind you that the Queets is not an example...the Quinalts take more fish than us there based on a dispute over the proper escapement. It may be a lame situation (it is, in my book), but it's not foregone opportunity.

There aren't any examples, and there aren't any court cases making it so (which is required for foregone opportunity to be in play).

Fish on...

Todd

(**edited where I messed up the quoted portion**)

Oh, I forgot your suggestion.

Raising escapement levels would definitely lower both stakeholder's half. Since we can fish selectively (release wild ones, keep the hatchery ones), this would be good for sportsfishermen, though it might make some fisheries close because they wouldn't be robust enough to carry even WSR with hatchery fish retention.

Overall, escapements being raised would be beneficial for us and the fish, I think.

Fish on...

Todd