So snit,

I agree that big C wild kings can probably support some harvest (at least the hanford reach fish). But its also pretty clear that some OP rivers could support some wild steelhead harvest many years. Yet most seem to believe a wild steelhead moratorium was merited. Using the same logic you'd have to protect the wild kings in the big C.

As for canadian harvest of puget sound kings off vancouver Island that's probably a topic for another discussion, but I think it has to do with politics.

Washington commerical fishers and tribes take lots of Fraser sockeye in the straits and san juans, so the candaians take lots of our chinook and coho off vancouver island to repay the favor. I think this might be outlined in the last candaian/us fishing treaty. Basically the upshot is the american sportsmen get screwed. The candians catch all our catchable PS chinook (and usually the lions share of coho), while the netters get the compensation by catching Fraser sockeye. Sportsfishers pay the price and the tribes and commercials reap the benefits, what a crock.

I've been told by biologists that the reason the coho fishing has been so good the past few years is that the candians haven't been able to fish for coho off vancouver Island because they've fished their resident coho into oblivion, so to let them recover they quit most of their commercial troll fishery for coho. Thus we get most of our coho back from the ocean instead of the usual 50% loss after the candian trollers take their cut.

At any rate, I think the next time the US/Canda salmon treaty is up for negotiation we as a group need to be in attendence to make sure we don't get the shaft again (or at least to the same degeree). This BS of trading Washington endangered chinook for fraser sockeye needs to be ended.

I definately support the mortorium on wild steelhead. Why I wouldn't support one, "statewide", for Chinook is for the reason Todd mentioned. Mass-marking of hatchery-origin Chinook is not happening yet.
If way more hatchery chinook are marked, then yes, I'd support one.
Chinook, by definition, are a food fish. Steelhead get the distiction, by the state regulations, as a gamefish.
Since most of the salmon I harvest come from the ocean (specifically MA 3-4, not puget sound), I know there is a possibility that I might put an "ESA listed" fish in the box. But those chances really are quite slim. The oppurtinity we have there, with the guidelines and such, is mainly because of the imense runs of fall Chinook headed for the Columbia. (As well as some other prominent chinook producing watersheds.) And the vast majority of those fish are of hatchery origin, adipose intact or not.
Sekiu was mentioned above. The selective fishery for chinook there, I think, is a good idea since that MA (5) is within the path of migratory puget sound wild/native chinook. Until 2002, the strait portion of MA 4 didn't have any chinook fishery for years.
Imo, the state is playing the percentages to provide fishing oportunity, while attempting to minimize the impact of protected runs of chinook.
With the quality of chinook fishing that I have experienced the last 3 years (in the ocean), and the ratio of marked vs. unmarked fish; and the quideline system that is in place on the ocean chinook fishery, I would not support a statewide mororium on chinooks. Not yet anyway.

J.D.

snit-

Number one 'enforcement fallacy'...

" but if WDFW would gett off the arses and write tickets that problem would get solved."

I seem to remember last years snagger bust on the Wind making both the KWGN and NWCN channels....tv cameras, pictures of the offenders went out over the air. Tickets were issued, arrests were made....it was as ugly for snaggers as it possibly could have been that day....

When I talked to one of the gamies down there he said the snagging pressure actually got worse, as if the tv publicity had planted this seed in the head of a hundred hillbillies...'Well, maybe I could snag one down on the Wind?'

You want to fix the problem on the wind quit blaming enforcement. If the Feds weren't dumping in hundreds of thousands of artificially produced salmon into that river, the snaggers wouldn't be there. Period. Have them frickin police the damn thing, after all its their hatchery. Sick and tired of hearing people blaming lack of enforcement for the snagging problem.

Mass mark all hatchery Nooks and I am solidly behind a wild chinook moratorium.

forget it just don't snag and take your damn garbage out of the canyon with you. unlike most of the people who utilize that stupid fishery...

catch and release wild steelhead forever....

i won't support a moratorium on steelhead or salmon at all. just plain idiotic in my view

these resources should be managed by river/system, not as a statewide blanket closure.

34....16....11... KNow what thoes three numbers represent???

34 the number of rivers where wild steelhead runs were healthy 10 years ago

16 is the same statistic 2 years ago.

11 is the number of healthy steelhead populations in the state of Washington right now...

everyone needs to get in now that the health of our steelhead runs statewide are IN DECLINE!!!!!!! Keeping wild steelhead anywhere in the state of Washington at the present time is wrong, stupid and selfish.
I fully support the end of wild steelhead harveest FOREVER.. Even id wild runs rebound to historic levels and all hatcheries are closed...