The conversation has been around for years but never went far as the agency pulled by commercial and tribal interest have to much clout. In fact there was the time when Mr. Peck was Deputy Director that staff and locals tried to chart a new direction. To accomplish such a thing would not happen over night that is for sure but numbers wise it is possible. With Winter Steelhead in the dumpster and not likely to recover any time soon to continue to produce even the mitigation fish is going drive harmful harvest. Now I am not advocating relieving WDFW of there responsibility but rather redirect harvest. So Steelhead Nooch mitigation, Nooch Summerrun program, Steelhead Skookumchuck Mitigation, drop Late Coho at Bingham as wild Late Coho are just hurting like hell and with out looking up the numbers would put us at about 400k.

Skookumchuck Coho Mitigation is another 300K late timed that frankly it is doubtful anyone will have access to. If normal timed Coho were done instead it would be of little use to either tribal or non tribal fishers. So right there your at 700K with no monies needed that are not already being utilized. Other options are available but one could get to close to a million with some normal timed Coho changes.

Additionally a low cost change that would benefit tribal and bay fishers is Aberdeen Lake Hatchery move to Chinook production and I think they could do about 2.5 million release. Some Wynoochee Chinook follow the Van Winkle water as the industrial pipeline from the nooch flows into the lake which gives you a zero loss brood. Years back TU and others purchased equipment for the hatchery and they got to 400k release in short order, the hatchery manager Robert Paulsen received an award for a WDG hatchery doing Chinook, and the WDFW harvest managers creamed their collective shorts and that was ended.

Hatcheries can be used to produce fish for harvest and not destroy native or wild runs, it just takes a different mind set. Different mind set being key words as if WDFW was the Titanic they would 500 ft under still telling the passengers don't panic that they got it under control!