Sobering indeed! The stock status info presented in the RMP presentation is the bleakest fisheries report I think I've ever seen. Fascinating that NMFS can come up with a Recovery Exploitation Rate (RER) of 22% for Stillaguamish Chinook, a population known to be unable to replace itself even in the absence of any fishing, coastwide. Similar for mid-HC Chinook. And these are the stocks typically controlling Puget Sound - and now PS tributaries as well - recreational fishing. Phil Anderson indicated he finds some optimism in the report, which makes me think he's still wearing the rose colored glasses. For me, the glaring news is that PS wild Chinook are circling the drain - maybe not Skagit, at least not as soon.

I think I'm a conservationist first and angler second. But when restricting fishing cannot possibly recover a salmon population, managers must look at other alternatives if recovery is truly the desired outcome. Restricting fishing will not and cannot recover Stilly Chinook or mid-HC Chinook. I've posted quite a bit about Stilly Chinook previously. Mid-HC Chinook should be removed from the list of Chinook stocks in the PS ESU. We were making some noise about this at NMFS 5 or more years ago. The logical reason for removal is because Chinook spawners in mid-HC tributaries (Dose, Duck, Hamma) are George Adams hatchery strays, or the uncommon offspring of GA strays. That means they are part of the ubiquitous Green River hatchery Chinook. What fish biologist would be surprised to learn that GR hatchery Chinook are mal-adapted to natural reproduciton on eastern OP tributaries? But, you say, where are the native wild mid-HC Chinook? They were wiped out by fishing by the end of the 1960s when HC was managed for wipe-out commercial fishing on hatchery Chinook, coho, and chum salmon. WDFW can crank the handle on the machine that is supposed to recover wild Chinook in the mid-HC tribs out of GR hatchery Chinook for decades, but that doesn't mean it will happen. If one wants to win the war, one shouldn't expend too many resources on a losing battle.

And of course, closing gamefish seasons (summer steelhead & sea run cutthroat, mainly CNR fly fishing) on the Stilly won't recover a single damn Chinook either. WDFW and the Tribe should be on the same side of the table persuading NMFS, by strong arm if necessary, to forget about any near term recovery of wild Stilly Chinook and focus on conservation hatchery measures to keep the stock in existence for some future time, likely far in the future if ever, working on habitat recovery meanwhile. Taking off the rose colored glasses would mean using Californial condor-like conservation measures for an indefinite period of time.

On a positive note, it appeared that some staff and Commissioners recognize that continuing to close or restrict recreational angling isn't going to recover any of the ESA-listed populations. They all appear to feel that the annual piggy-backing on the BIA permit after NOF is not a sustainable course of action. They haven't figured out the solution yet, but at least I got the feeling that they are now looking for one. That's a partial relief. I say partial because they aren't saying they won't close gamefish seasons under the pretext of Chinook conservation this year or next, even though everyone in the room now seems to understand such closures won't do a damn thing to conserve the threatened Chinook. Clearly we still have a ways to go.