About optics of in river fishers then and now. In the early 80s the Coho came in and stopped right at the Satsop twin bridges. As luck would have my wife and I were off a week to fish so when I seen this was happening we fished it with 4 guys from Monte. Then the Chum came up and I mean the old bridge flats it was a river full of fish. My wife did a C&R on the biggest damn bowser I have ever seen and that fish had her ass deep in the river more than once, up and down the bar on runs that was something to see.

Then a Seattle TV station ( KOMO I think ) did video for the nightly news and the next day that gravel bar was ass deep in people. The reaction from WDF was it was a great year for fishing! I abandoned that zoo but if you have lots of fish that are accessible your going to draw lots of people. The press release quotes James Losee with "Historic low flows this summer are creating conditions that limit fish movements and result in higher-than-expected harvest rates," said James Losee, WDFW Region 6 fish program manager. "These areas are closing to fishing until river conditions improve and salmon are able to reach the spawning grounds in adequate numbers." Right here I call BS LOUDLY because commercial harvest and Rec harvest continues in the tidewater and bay. This is about a substantial number of harvestable fish stopping where folks can access them. As in all things that draws folks it can look and is unruly but that is combat fishing. Optics suck but the average person who does not have a boat can get a fish!

For Janes Losee and Kelly Cunningham and the minions in the concrete palace to put this is about conservation is simply as I said a load of BS. Now I cannot back this up with numbers because the QIN and WDFW will not release the QIN harvest numbers. That said the QIN and NT commercials are still fishing so the closure is clearly not about conservation. It is about the optics of large numbers of fish and large numbers of river fishers coming together for "combat fishing"

Again the optics are bad but for average citizen who cannot afford a boat and fishes a few times a year to finally get to catch a salmon after several lean years is a dream come true. For Fish Programs harvest managers James Losee and Kelly Cunningham to put forth that for the Chehalis this is about conservation is just plain a falsehood. It is about the optics of the average citizen and large numbers of fish coming together. It ain't pretty but neither is a gillnet ripping fish out of the water but terminal commercial fisheries and charter boat mayhem are acceptable.

This is the discrimination that inriver Rec fishers have struggled with for years. I do not use the word discrimination lightly but it is true. Many things have changed over the years but the bias within WDFW toward inriver recreational fishers has not.