Grandpa,

You sure are articulate at 4:00 in the morning! I couldn't even turn on my computer until I've had a second cup of coffee, which never happens until a bit later than that. Thanks for your post; it's one of the better pieces I've read here. I agree that where there are choices to be made that allow fishing, the closer a proposal can land near the center, the higher the likelihood that it will be adopted.

I must also agree that this was one of Rob's more embracing suggestions when contrasted with his common "everyone who disagrees with me is wrong!" position statements. I do sympathize with him because SW WA hasn't had much focus on wild salmon and steelhead when compared to the coast and Puget Sound rivers. The SW situation was decades in the making, and the Columbia River dams were the primary cause. The easy way out was to place all bets on the hatchery line, and it seemed to work for a while. The massive hatchery rivers supported immense commercial and recreational fisheries until the hatchery solution began imploding upon itself and the ESA listings came along.

I think Rob has a good basic concept with regard to restoring naturally reproducing and sustaining fisheries in the river basins that have the best potential to achieve wild fish success.

Consider that much of the lower Columbia tributary hatchery production exists to do two things: 1) mitigate losses associated with dams; 2) support commercial fisheries that have or are becoming economic, social, and conservation anachronisms. A lot of that hatchery production could be eliminated without affecting sport fishing if we are able to close those commercial fisheries that no longer serve society's needs, like the lower Columbia River gillnet fishery. That, of course, isn't going to be easy, but economics and conservation forces could help make that happen over time - the incremental change that another post mentioned.

Rob's proposal isn't workable as it stands, even if it makes perfect sense to him. However, it works for me as a starting point for constructive dialogue. His concept of separating hatchery based and natural production based fisheries as much as practicalbe is an excellent idea when considering the conservation ecology layer and even the social layer. It begins to get more complicated when we overlay the legal layer, specifically the ESA - that's the least flexible layer in this mix of ideas. But I do think it's possible to restore natural production fisheries in several of the SWW tribs, and Rob's included those in his suggestions.

As much sense as it might make to him and others to write of the Cowlitz and N. Lewis to massive hatchery whack 'em and stack 'em fisheries, their are two federal laws - at least - that force some of us, like CFM and me, to try and restore natural production to the upper Cowlitz and N. Lewis in a mixed fishery that will include natural salmon and steelhead production as well as perpetual hatchery production to mitigate for unavoidable effects of those rivers hydropower systems. Increasingly, it appears that it can be done, and we're adapting. Well, some of us are adapting faster than others.

I just wanted to respond to this thread because the sincere attempts at a voice of reason seem to be present. That's a refreshing change worth noting.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.