A few observations:

The ruling is a recommendation from a magistrate judge. The district judge will make the final decision, but I don’t expect anything different. The recommendation seems to be well-supported, and consistent with legal precedent. But nobody can appeal this ruling until the district judge makes it final.

This was a partial win for WFC. The judge is recommending closure of the SE AK Chinook fishery but she did not enjoin the additional hatchery production for SRKW’s. WFC is probably not happy about the split decision.

This decision does not affect the Canadian troll fishery off the BC Coast. But the Canadians have cut back on their troll fishery considerably b/c of the impact on SRKW’s. It’s helpful that ocean harvest reductions in both countries seem to be occurring.

It’s likely the Chinook returns to the Columbia, and likely Puget Sound, will go up. Perhaps considerably. It would be great to quantify the increase in returns because of the reduced harvest pressure, but that might be difficult to tease out.

Unless the increase in Chinook salmon can be accurately predicted, fishing in the Lower Columbia is going to become considerably more uncertain. We saw this last fall, and we might see it again in the spring. In short, if there are more Chinook than is forecasted, we will hit the allocation limit faster. And the fishery will be shut down until the pre-season forecast can be updated (as the fish start coming over BON). And that might not happen until the run is almost thru the Lower Columbia. It’s great for the folks fishing upstream of BON, especially the Tribes, but not for the folks fishing the Lower Columbia.

I still believe the best way to increase the production of fall Chinook, and help SRKW’s, is to let the hatchery fish spawn rather than using barriers to keep them off the spawning grounds. It’s unbelievable that NMFS is spending millions to do something the fish will do for free.

As an example, the weir on the Kalama River removed 14,411 hatchery adult Chinook (tules) this past fall from the river. If those adults were allowed to spawn, they would produce as many out-migrating sub-yearlings as most hatcheries. And it wouldn’t cost anyone a dime. The fish will do that for free. But noooooo. NMFS wants to crank up hatchery production rather than produce more wild smolts. Hard to believe.

The weirs that keep hatchery fish off the spawning grounds continues to be a fish management failure of the highest order. But the real problem is that neither NMFS or WDFW will admit this, given the $$’s that have gone into these facilities. And so it continues.....