Salmo -
Personally I find your basic plan on the Columbia to cut hatchery production while maintianing sport and tribal catches by eliminating the non-tribal commerical fishery to be an excellent example of thinking outside of the box. However it would be well to remember that such an approach would be flying in the face of several long standing traditions.

First the non-treay commerical fishery has a long history of successfully lobbying and maintianing their intrests in the political and public arenas. To date the sport fishing interests have only been remarkable in our inability to present a unified front in either area. Just quickly review the infighting on this board between boaters and bankies, drift boat verus sleds, bait verus no-bait etc., etc. All we seem able to agree about is "someone else is limiting my ability to fish where I want to or is catching my fish". Until the sport fishing community can put the "how do we divide the pie" arguments aside and focus on the larger issues such you are attempting to address I don't see how society as a whole will take us seriously.

The last century of fishery management has taught the lesson that a fish is fish only too well. It is just too convenient for many folks to continue to accept that myth (look at the recent Oregon coastal coho mess). It has only been very recently that enlighted managers and fishers have recognized the differences between hatchery and wild fish. Until larger segments of society recognize these differences the selling hatchery production cuts could be very tough sledding. This is doubly tough because so many people have vested interest in maintianing the status quo. Perhaps we need T. Eyman to start an initiative showing that there would be tax savings in such cuts.

Implementation of your "solution" will require not only a vision but a long range plan on how to address these and other issue. This will take patience and the willingness to build the case block by block; step by step.

My pointing out tht Wild Steelhead Release may not necessarily result in large run sizes is just an example of those small steps. I point this out not that I disagree that most runs would be more robust under such management but to make the case that WSR is not the magic bullet for large steelhead runs and better fishing that some seem to think. This just tends to deflect focus from of what I feel are larger issues. At best it will only buy us a little time to address these larger issues. The question is are we willing to use that time productively. While it is difficult to be very optimistic about success I'm willing to till windmills in the hope that it may lead to success.

Ryan -
Perhaps the simplest definition of carrying capacity is it is that population level at which escapements will not on the average produce large runs. Escapement below carrying capacity will genreally result in a larger run sizes while those above will produce smaller run sizes. Or to put in another way it is the population equilibrium point with no fishing.

It is important to note that to manage for carrying capacity there can be no fishing induced mortalities. Certainly a fishery managed under WSR would result in a population closer to (but not at) carrying capacity than it would with a high harvest rate.

How one would go about setting "optimum escapement" will depend on your objective as well as what shape the spawner recrui curve may look like (this gets a little techincal). Most steelhead managers feel that a Beverton-Holt curve most closely fits steelhead populations though the data from the Skagit looks more like the typical Ricker curve. This is important because with population that behaves like a "Ricker" the largest average runs size would result in managing for escapements significantly below the population equilibrium point while with with "Beverton-Holt" the largest run would be at the equilibrium point.

What this means for the Skagit information that has been looked at to date the is:
1) Ricker model using Bayesian decision analysis (work done by L. Reed for Washington Trout) found that MSY escapement was about 4,000; carrying capacity capacity or equilibrium would be about 9,500; maximum run size (about 11,000) would occur at escapements of about 5,500. She had recommended that the optimum escapement would be in the 8,000 to 9,000 range and that managing for escapements of 9,000 would allow for an average harvest of 13%.

2) Beverton-Holt model (tribes and WDFW) estimated that MSY escapement was about 4,500 with capacity and maximum run size at about 10,000.

One reason the two are so different is that in the past high escapements have produce small runs. For example an escapement of 11,100 produced a run size of only 6,300 adults (fish tht returned 3, 4,5, and 6 years later) and an escapement of 13,200 produced a run of 5,600. Of course all these numbers are just estimates but they are what is available.

Side note: current mangement has an escapement goal of 6,000 with a maximum harvest rate for those runs above 6,000 capped at 16% (repeat spawner rate). In practice the harvest rate over the last decade has averaged less than 10% with highest rate any one year being 14.7%.

The above is way too much so if you don't mind we'll skip the SF Sky coho example except to say that looking at species other than steelhead would provide some insights in general population dynamics but to get at the nuts and bolts of steelhead populations we need to look at steelhead case studies.

To any other readers who still might still be attempting to follow all this I apologize for a way too technical discussion.

I'm tried - so good night.
Tight Lines

Smalma