This year the Grays Harbor fisheries plan resulted in the Chehalis river being limited to a one fish coho bag despite the non-tribal harvest being well under half the available fish and thousands of hatchery fish going unharvested. I tried to unravel how that happened and this is my opinion on why this occurred. First you must understand that there are about four sets of harvest rules. One set for the tribal fishers, a different set for the non-tribal fishers, another rule that says the Grays Harbor fish caught off shore in Washington waters are included, and a final rule that says the final harvest for each species must be shared 50/50. First an agreed to available harvest plan is generated, then each side tries to maximize their fishery within their rule set. Usually one species will reach the maximum limit and this will stop additional harvest of available other species. When the final plans are compared there is a requirement that each side has a 50/50 split for each species.

This year the QIN harvest plan fished right up to the maximum for chum which stopped them from additional fishing. As a result they caught only 47% of the available coho and 85% of the available Chinook (available under their rules). The non-tribal plan had not reached any limit but did harvest more coho than the QIN. This invoked the 50/50 harvest rule and limited the non-tribal coho harvest to be equal to the limited QIN harvest. That is the reason the bag limit on the Chehalis got cut to one fish with thousands of unharvested hatchery fish available. The 50/50 rule does not seem to apply in reverse as in the case of the non-tribal inability to harvest chum.