I attended last night's WDFW rules meeting, and here are a few thoughts on what I heard.
WDFW thinks it makes sense to "turn the tables" on the current regs by closing March-April fishing on the Snohomish and Stilly because they expect the recent low escapements to continue for (at least) the next few years. Their thinking is that calling for emergency closures is a hassle for them, and given their expectations for poor returns they are almost certain to close the Snohomish/Stilly CnR seasons next spring. I asked Curt Kraemer about 2001 escapements and he said the Snohomish numbers haven't been finalized, but he expects them to be around 70% the escapement goal (about 4000 fish total). On the Sauk/Skagit, returns were a little better and they MIGHT have a fishery next spring (I guess they are still working up the redd count numbers). According to guidelines in the Wild Salmonid Policy, a CnR fishery requires escapements of at least 80% of the goal.

I have some philosophical problems with this proposal. First, it would require an "emergency opener" to get the seasons
back. They do not do in-season assessments on winter steelhead returns, so there will never be an emergency steelhead opener in a season where escapements are adequate. Instead, they'd likely have to be lobbied to open seasons for the year after escapements met or exceeded spawning goals. This isn't a bad thing, since it surely errs on the side of conservation and allows a good return to do their thing. Second, and most problematic to me, is that it's effectively saying that the "normal state" of North Sound winter steelhead fisheries are so depressed that they're EXPECTED to miss escapement goals, and the ONLY agency response is closing seasons (March -April CnR plus the Dec-Feb wild steelhead harvest). "Emergency Openers", to me, is aiming awfully low in our expectations and these would tend to diminish public recognition of the crisis that's at hand.

They are selling this as a fish first policy. Maybe so, but going with this rule change would make life easier for WDFW by moving the low returns out of the public eye. Why should we agree to make life easier for an agency who's mismanagement has contributed to widespread declines in the health of our fisheries? Either way, we will not get a spring fishery until the year after we see escapements exceed that 80%-of-goal mark. In the end, I think Emergency Closures make a heck of a lot more sense than "emergency openers".

So, what to do? Join the WDFW and pray for help from Mother Nature? Definitely. But we need to get active, to keep sending letters, attending meetings, and letting the agency know that we're concerned and we may have other perspectives and values than those that brought us to this point.