I've benefitted from the rain timing this year, and that's been great, because I got royally screwed by last year's timing. For sure, a lot of fish moved up the Satsop between the end of September and mid-October. They weren't there every day, but when they were moving, it was in good numbers, which made for good fishing. Best I've had in years.

With that said, you'd probably think I would be happy about the increased harvest limit, but I actually think it's a lousy idea. I'm one of those people who believe that "fish are habitat," and I'd like to see the "surplus" left in the river, to spawn and turn into marine-derived nutrients. I get that there is such a thing as a catastrophic overescapement, but I think it's safe to say we've not been anywhere near that biomass in Grays Harbor for many decades (certainly, 10,000 fish to the hatchery is well short of that mark).

I also get the management perspective that more hatchery fish than what is needed for broodstock is considered waste, and it also creates the need for more labor hours to deal with the surplus in various ways. I think that's what's driving this decision (trying to make the hatchery fish stop coming; not enhancing fishing opportunities). The reality is that the majority of the hatchery run is pretty much over at this point. Yes, a few more will trickle in throughout the rest of the season, but it should be mostly wild fish from here on out. That means there will be anglers staying on the water after harvesting two wilds, trying to find that bonus hatchery fish. If fishing is good, they might encounter several more wilds without finding a hatchery fish. I don't think that's how WDFW would want that to play out.

Although there won't actually be many fish around most days the rest of the season, increasing the limit always has the effect of increasing pressure. It would have been ideal to have that bonus fish available around the opener (a couple thousand of those surplus fish could have been caught in the first 2 weeks), but obviously, they weren't aware there would be a surplus at that point, so here we are....

Anyway, I don't agree with the mentality that we need to harvest fish, hatchery or otherwise, down to the last expendable fish in order to be managing a fishery effectively. Indeed, at this point in the game, any number of fish beyond escapement goals, regardless of origin, can only help future broods (not to mention steelhead and every other species of game fish).

"Excess" fish are free habitat enhancement (or at least a lot cheaper than building all these fish passage bridges on creeks that have severely depressed or non-existent salmon runs, anyway). On that note, maybe they should start transporting excess hatchery spawners to some of those places, to let them seed the recovered habitat. Who cares if they aren't as successful as wild pairs might be... some progeny would survive, and they would adapt to be more successful in those habitats. Has a much better chance of getting a return on the investment in those projects than harvesting down to the same escapement goals we had before the habitat was restored and expecting more fish to magically appear....