CFM,

You rascal! You have too much time on your hands for thinking, but thanks anyway. You have a very good point regarding the effectiveness of reducing commercial emphasis by the WDFW Commission. And I believe you are correct in your analogy with the steelhead initiative of 1935 or so. Silver H's concerns are not likely to apply. The feds recognize each state as the primary fish and wildlife manager. The feds get involved in interstate fisheries like the Columbia (WA, OR, ID) and US Canada, and treaty - non-treaty, but otherwise states are free to determine appropriate management. Oh, there are exceptions like the Black Bass Act which designate largemouth bass as a game fish nationally, and no state may permit their commercial harvest.

The primary effect of CFM's proposal would be to shift all non-treaty commercial salmon harvest to recreational harvest as an allocation adjustment. There would be no direct effect on treaty commercial fishing. The treaty share would officially remain 50% of the harvestable salmon and steelhead. However, in situations where the non-treaty fishery would be unable to harvest their full share, treaty fisheries would, in some of those cases, be allowed to increase their harvest percentage.

Personally, I think it's probably a good idea for the Columbia River and Puget Sound, where there are viable treaty fisheries that can harvest salmon above that which can be recreationally harvested, so people who don't sport fish could still purchase fresh salmon to eat. I would prefer not to totally eliminate the ocean troll fishery, but that's just a personal opinion, probably because I buy some troll caught chinook every year for my BBQ. But the idea sure works better if it's an across the board shift that all salmon in non-treaty fisheries are game fish and not food fish.

The oposition to such an initiative would be immense; comparable to the gillnet initiative of a few years ago. The money wouldn't come from WA state commercial interests specifically. It would come from coastwide commercial interests - Alaska (many boats fish Alaska in the summer and Puget Sound in the fall) and the off-shore trawl group - since they would see it as an incremental conspiracy to eliminate all commercial fishing.

It would be hard to do, since many conservation groups officially recognize non-treaty commercial fishing interests as being part of the "great coalition" to save salmon for "everyone." Recreational interests couldn't do it alone, in my estimation. We would need the conservation groups - they have more people (voters) and money than we do. We would need and could possibly get the Direct Service Industries, although so many of them are going out of business, it might not be much anymore.

It could be done - and probably will some day. They banned gillnets in Florida and California, and it's really helped. Striped bass and bluefish have really rebounded on the east coast as a result of removing commercial fishing pressure.

Such an outcome would certainly do much of what CFM indicates for SWW rivers and serve the interests outlined in Rob's thread.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.