My wife grew up on Hood Canal, she had a front row seat on the damage the state allowed to happen to the canal by commercial fisheries. How the bottom trawlers pulled up all the ell grass that still today has not come back and ravaged bottom fish populations, all for a buck without regard for the future.
So, while searching for some documentation I came across this article. It seems to be a from a book of some sort put out by the Kitsap Sun back in 1990 but couldn't find any more reference to it. The link is:
mediaassets.kitsapsun.com/permanent/hoodcanal/chapter7.pdf
It's an interesting historical perspective of fishing and fisheries management in Hood Canal. In my opinion this just shows the state fisheries management has learned nothing from their past mistakes. They seem to have always taken the side of commercial fishing and recreational fishing just seems to be an occupational hazard to them.
One thread that ran through the entire article in the Sun was that we could somehow solve all our problems (Indian vs. non-Indian, commercial vs. sport fisheries) by simply modifying our hatchery programs. As it turns out, nothing could be further from the truth.
Another big lie throughout the article was that the commercial fisheries in the Canal were managed to protect natural populations. At the time the article was written (and continuing to this day with only the changes caused by the Endangered Species Act), the only populations that were managed for natural production were Hood Canal coho. All the natural Chinook and chum populations were considered secondary, meaning what ever happened to them was based on management for hatchery escapement (i.e. all were harvested at hatchery rates that are not sustainable in natural populations). Obviously the listing of P.S. Chinook and Hood Canal summer chum forced a modification to that approach.
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