From the Reel News UW article:

"The NW Indian Fisheries Commission was invited to participate, but schedules conflicted."

Wow, I am truly surprised they were tooooooo busy to participate....

19 or 20 separate Tribal entities unable to form a quorum and participate in an effort to move forward on the issues?...must have had a priority of mending nets--rather than mending fences...

How will this 10 year plan affect Puget Sound Winter Blackmouth seasons?

Any PS fishery, including the winter blackmouth, that encounter Stilly fish may be looked at for reductions. Those times and areas that have higher concentrations of Stilly fish relative to other times and areas (even if very low) may get the most reductions in order to get down to the ER ceilings ala "Bang for the Buck" approach. The season setting discussions would revolve around tradeoffs between "Bang for the Buck" vs keeping important times and areas open despite the impact on Stilly fish.

Before those discussions of who takes what hit(s) to stay below the combined 8% figure we need to establish a foundation of how that 8% will be split. That is, what has been the sharing over the past few years and, more importantly, will the State and tribes now be sharing that 8% on a 50/50 basis?

It will look really ridiculous in the mixed stock fisheries. Very few fish in a large pool. To save one Stilly fish you may have to give up 1,000 other PS Chinook. (made up numbers). If that encounter is released and you use a 10% mortality you now have about 10,000 fish to give up. If they are really serious about saving as many as they can there will be a lot of fisheries shut down.

Is it worth it will be a big question. From the NI side, it will be critical to reserve 50% of the impacts or force WDFW, the Feds, and the Tribes to say maintaining the Tribal fisheries trumps all. For history, see Lake WA Chinook.....

If the NI impacts over the past years were effectively less than 4% a simple (for me) and logical approach (to me) is to say the State does not need to further restrict its P.S. fisheries. If we have been exceeding that 4% then our efforts should be to ensure that our fisheries do not exceed that number.

Well, yeah. But that then means the Tribes, who in some cases are taking more than a 50% share, need to cut back. Since that's not gonna happen...

Really? I am shocked by that revelation! But seriously, if restraining impacts become the new measure of sharing then 50/50 should be supportable by both sides. And, no, despite it now being legal I am not partaking.....

We saw it wit Lake WA where the sport impacts went to the Tribes. And other places. WDFW has a reason, obviously unstated, why departure from 50:50 is acceptable.

I suspect that the allowance for ocean fisheries is the driver. Give us the ocean, we'll give you the rest. Also, by taking the NI share, or even more, in the ocean guarantees the Tribes at least as much under Hoh v. Baldridge. It's a great trade. You fish on the forecast (ocean) and we fish the fixed schedule, based on the forecast, inside.

There is obviously some trading going on. Maybe fish, maybe crabs, who knows because the public can't see the sausage being made.

Be careful what you ask for. If you take a hard line on 50:50, then the tribal response could likely be "ok 50:50 everywhere" . You won't be allowed to just pick the stocks and pops you want to do this on. You want 50:50 you gotta do 50:50 everywhere. For some stocks like Strait of Juan de Fuca (Dungeness, Elwha), Mid Hood Canal and maybe Stilly there isn't much or any terminal area fishing by the tribes. The dead fish are in mixed stock fisheries. These are primarily NT troll, ocean and PS sport, and San Juan Island Fraser sockeye net fisheries. In these fisheries, it takes a big whack on total catch to save a handful of the constraining stock to get the NT share down to 50% for these stocks.

There is also a rather sizable tribal troll fishery off the coast and a significant fishery on Fraser sockeye and pink. Since their Fraser fisheries occur more in the Straits (where US stocks are more predominant) tight holding to 50:50 would, per your example, hit them as hard or harder. I think that the Tribes now take more than 50% of the Fraser share to the US.

But, Darth, you raise the point that many here want to know. Why is there a deviation from 50:50. What does the NI side get for giving up PS fisheries? And, they (the actual users) should have a say in the decision. At least they should know why it is being made.

I think herein lies the real dark kernel of our need for transparency. WDFW and the tribal Co-managers (we have been told) have been making deals, trades, gives and takes for some time. So much so, the concept of a straight division of 50/50 is a mere figment of the imagination. There are probably areas where trade offs are appropriate, say impacts. But it should be done out in the open! Is it contentious, yes. Are there some uncomfortable conversations that have to take place, of course. We believe one of the biggest reasons the Tribes don't want the meetings in the public, is because they don't want the public to see them fighting amongst themselves over who's gonna get the most fish! YES, they do! But, again, we have to put all that past us and have trust in each other or our fish are doomed! And to have trust, we cannot do things behind locked doors!

Exactly! Years ago there was a situation where a Tribe could get more than half of the coho but less than half of the chum. For a while, both sides went through the process of filing foregone opportunity claims, killing a lot of trees in the process. After a couple rounds of this, they just agreed that one side was better at catching one species than the other. As long as the two fisheries did not interfere and escapement was met they just let it go.

So, while I know there are good reasons for at least some of the decisions, unless the license-buying public knows they shouldn't just blindly trust WDFW.

CM. Yes the Fraser fishery in the San Juans has a higher catch of sockeye and Chinook in the treaty fishery than nonIndians. My point was that for those Chinook stocks that have minimal to no terminal fishery which is mostly treaty catch, the sum of pre-terminal fishery Chinook catches (or dead fish) in the treaty troll and net fisheries may be less than 50% of the total. Strait of Juan de Fuca Chinook fit this pattern. So for JDF Chinook stocks, the non treaty fisheries would need to be reduced to get down to a 50:50 split on dead fish. To get to 50:50 may require significant reduction in the Area 5 fishery. Of course, reducing Area 5 catch would also reduce the catch of other stocks passing through the area. Reduction of the catch of these other stocks could aggravate the 50:50 sharing such that the non treaty share gets further away from getting up to 50%. It becomes very difficult to restrict some fisheries and increase others to get all of the stocks at a 50:50 sharing level. There are just too many fisheries to juggle to get everybody at 50:50 while meeting the management objectives of the most constraining stock(s). In reality it can't be done for all stocks everywhere.

The state and the tribes each have their list of highest priority fisheries. For the state, this might mean that having a fishery in one area is the highest priority and to get that it may not be the most efficient way to achieve biological objectives or 50:50 sharing. During the preseason process, the "negotiation" is we need this and will accept not having that (which may be 50:50). Presumably the advisory groups and constituents help the department to identify those high priority fisheries, recognizing that you can't always get what you want.

Carcasman, I've followed many of your posts, and I just want to say, You seem to have a pretty good handle on things. We all have our bias and opinions, but one thing I think we can all agree on. Secrets breed suspicion. Suspicion leads to dis-trust, and dis-trust has gotten to where we are today. There is NO PLACE for secrets in the management of a public resource. There is no excuse good enough to justify keeping things out of the light of day.

Obviously, WDFW has done a very poor job of educating users as to the tradeoffs. Personally, putting all the harvest in the terminal and extreme terminal areas is the ecologically best way to go. There's a lot of folks who want to whack 'em in the ocean.

I am not begruding the trades. As I said, there are good reasons for many. But the Public has to know them, know the basis, and the reasons.

WDFW has very little credibility with just about anyone who interacts with natural resources in WA, and they seem to be going out of their way to perpetuate that view.

There is another thing at work here that is quite possibly the root of much of the conflicts.

The Tribes and NI Commercials can get along rather well as they operate from the same playbook. See fish, kill fish, move on. It is rather easy to divide up something when everybody uses it the same way.

The sporties play different. They have always been able to release by catch. In the last 20 years they have developed the ability to release wild fish versus hatchery fish of the same species. This gives them the opportunity to kill more of the target stock than a "kill them all" fishery can.

Couple this with a PR machine that casts the Tribes as the first and foremost conservationists whose only concern is the welfare of the resource seven generations in the future and you develop a disconnect between what is said and what happens in the real world.

But, WDFW steps in and uses some of the most creative (what is the right word for light years beyond creative?) ways to use release survivals to justify a fishery, when the research looks at really short-term survival post release rather than the effect on spawning success, and so on that significant doubt can be thrown at any number used.

Making the meetings public would throw a light on a process that I believe neither side wants exposed. Each has shortcomings that they want to keep hidden.

How about just publishing the decisions made in the backroom deals, with a plain language summary of how each decision impacts allocation in the fishery in question, as well as the overall allocation of the State/Tribal share?

It would be easy to build an allocation tracking system that keeps constant tabs on what percentage of harvestable fish each side is allocated in each fishery. Those data could be aggregated to represent the overall percentage of harvestable fish each side has been allocated.

I imagine both sides have modeling tools (that likely disagree with each other, if the State vs. tribal forecasts are any indication). What I propose is one, agreed-to tracking system, developed and maintained by a neutral party (consultants from out of state?), that can be used to show the current allocations for individual stocks, species as a whole, and total, harvestable salmon, throughout the NOF process. Build in catch reporting (a very minor upgrade), and you've got a system that shows all stakeholders the overall allocation vs. catch and whatever individual allocations vs. catch they care to look at for deeper understanding.

Two problems I anticipate with this solution:
1. Could WDFW and the Tribes work together (even with a mediator) to establish a unified planning model? Nothing we've seen so far suggests that's at all likely.
2. (Probably very closely related) It doesn't allow for the insertions of politically-motivated decisions without clearly calling them out as such. (I think this is the transparency most sorely lacking in the process.)

Well, maybe there needs to be that paradigm shift - let's say it would certainly shake up the status quo.

But the current reality is that the Plan includes extremely restrictive impacts on Stillaguamish NOR and hatchery produced "wild" (broodstock) fish.

I posed a question earlier asking for the tribal and non-tribal SUS impact stats on those particular fish. So far no response. Okay, maybe no one has that info at their finger tips so let me again opine that given the potential ripple effect of an 8% impact it should be shared equally between users.

If the tribes want to make a bigger deal out of that then let's have that discussion out in the open.