Heres the big problem. What if the fish never show. The way the state manages the rivers we wont know till this spring if we got enough fish or not as thats when they find out the run size by spawner surveys.

By MSY the run is projected by the spawning escapement and smolt survival from 4 and 5 years earlier. From that projection they caculate to the exact fish how many will be harvested and they try and make sure we and the tribes take every extra fish.

So if it looks like it does on the Quileute System so far we could be comming way short of what they thought. I dont know what the projection was but im sure it was quite high compared to the last few years projections.

So the jist of it is this. No matter what the actual run size is harvest goes off of the projected run size. If we get a far smaller run than projected and harvest off of the projected run size the Steelhead and the Quileute system take it in the shorts. I think this is happening as we speak.

I may be wrong and might be jumping the gun a little but the fish should be comming and we have had the rain to make them come. There is no excure for them to have not shown yet.

This is how we got to the situation we are in now in the Queets and the North Sound rivers.