Question: Why in the h--- are we having trouble with Coho escapement now because we did not in the past. Why are river fishers paying the bill with shortened seasons?

Well yes and no. The lowest wild escapement that I found with a quick look was 1991 and it was driven by excessive harvest. Simply put the difference now is we are short about a million or more Coho hatchery smolt ( much more if you go back to the 70's ) than are produced presently. This is a big deal because in down years of natural production returns the hatchery adults provided the opportunity. Now the Chehalis is primarily a natural return fishery and the hatchery adults are more or less a bonus.

Additionally the growth in rec inriver fishers in the last ten years is huge. Every time Puget Sound or other streams are restricted we get more fishers in the Chehalis. Also in the 90's the rec bay fisheries were added which increased the fishing impacts of the rec fishers substantially. This simply means that we have many more rec fishers directing harvest at natural production and drastically reduced hatchery production. In fact I do not know how staff can even model rec impacts because they base the impacts on past years. As rec fishers loose opportunities in other parts of the state the Grays Harbor rec fishers continue to increase dramatically!

In years of good returns we do OK but when the we are in a down cycle on natural production as we are now it does not allow much. It would not surprise me if in 10 years we are completely C&R on wild everything. To many people chasing to few fish.