Tug,

I know it doesn't seem intuitive, and it's hard to find believers among sport fishermen, but the treaty tribal netting of steelhead - with the likely exception of the Queets and Quinault - does not appear to be reducing the productivity of steelhead populations anywhere in WA state that I am aware of. I don't know one single fish biologist who thinks it does. What the netting does is reduce the number of adult steelhead in a river in a season. As crazy as it may seem, the netting on the OP doesn't appear to be causing an irreversible decline in wild steelhead productivity. I don't advocate managing the fish this way because it does maintain relic, instead of near maximum, numbers of fish in the river. I suspect this can, and will, go on for a very long time. The current co-management strategy of the state and tribes works well enough for the tribes that there is insufficient incentive for them to want to change.

I've posted this before, but I don't know how many believe me. That if there had been no fishing, as in none, zero, for steelhead by treaty and non-treaty fishermen since 1980, the wild steelhead run sizes today would still be just about exactly what we are seeing. Even though fishing has reduced the spawning escapements in all rivers by the number harvested (including incidental CNR mortality), the total runsizes (total = catch + escapement) would still be as low as what we are seeing today. This is because the huge reduction in marine survival rates is the proximate cause, or limiting factor, affecting run sizes that reach the river mouths each year. If there were no steelhead fishing whatever at the present time, and increase in returns would be barely noticable, and would easily fit in the category of random variation. So crappy returns are unavoidable. That is underscored by your note of the closure of the Nooksack River. Even in the absence of fishing, that hatchery run has struggled to get enough adult steelhead back to the hatchery rack to meet its broodstock goal of enough eggs to simply maintain the program. (It's a different question to ask why we continue a hatchery program that cannot produce harvestable fish.)

What zero netting would do is to increase the number of steelhead in the river. More fish per mile of river would almost certainly be noticed as more productive recreational fishing. But let me stress that is not the same as more biological productivity.

C'man brings up a significant point about repeat spawners. Respawners are more fecund, effectively increasing the spawning escapement without increasing the actual number of spawning fish. The need for respawners continues to be debated. Some think that since the numbers are low, actually or as a percentage of the population, that it doesn't matter. I strongly believe that they are essential to biological diversity. And the maxim of intelligent tinkering (management) is that you make certain to save all the parts. Treaty netting of spring Chinook removes steelhead kelts as a matter of incidental bycatch. I suspect that gives rise to at least part of the debate about respawners not being necessary to successful steelhead management.

Lifter mentions the allure of steelhead fishing. I don't think there is a good explanation - because I've tried, and I feel like every explanation I have come up with is inadequate. But the allure looks to be the same as seen among hard core Atlantic salmon fishers. We are addicts, and I, for one, don't want to be cured. Ah, SW WA in the late 1960s and through the 1970s, that was steelhead Heaven. I used to camp at Harry Morgan camp, and often ventured downstream into the canyon to fish the pocket water. That was a good place to lose a lot of terminal rigs.