This is the same old wine in a brand new bottle. (Points for the musical group that coined that phrase). Let me see if I can answer some of the questions that have been brought up here.

1. Rich, Oregon and Alaska are not governed under the Boldt Decision. The Boldt Decision was actually fairly narrow and defined treaty rights for a group of Indians that were covered by a number of treaties signed in the early 1850's in what became Washington State. I will admit that I am surprised that the tribes in Oregon and Alaska have not attempted something like this (Maybe they have, enlightenment anyone?).

2. I am for Wild Steelhead Release and Wild Salmon Release as well. I do not fly fish very often so trying to paint WSR as a fly-only initiative is not accurate I think.

3. One way to take care of the Wild Steelhead retention problem by the tribes would be to have the co-managers of the resource (WDFW and the Tribes) negotiate a new method of fishing in the rivers - actually an old method - the fish wheel. There would be mortality. I'm not certain if the mortality would be less or greater than that of C&R - but all could be negotiated. My guess is that even if the State financed the placing of the fish wheels and associated infrastructure, it would be significantly less than the amount of money spent on raising Hatchery fish in those rivers where a healthy run of Wild Steelhead could exist.

4. As long as salmon are managed as a food fish, we will never see Wild Salmon Release. Grandpa makes a good point that without complete marking of Hatchery Salmon, Wild Release is impractical at best. Once again, the State pays a huge amount of money to create Hatchery Salmon so that they can be caught by the Commercials, Tribes, & Sports Fishermen. Once again, I reccomend the book King of Fish by David Montgomery for some interesting ideas about how we can improve habitat and survival of Wild Salmonids of all types.

There are ways to solve this problem. Economically for both the Tribes and the Commercial fleet, the trend is unmistakable - it is not economically viable to catch these fish. My concern is that when the bottom falls out of the salmonid catching economy - there will be no Wild Fish left to save. One hedge to that would be to manage one river system in each of WDFW's regions as a Wild Fish sanctuary - no fishing of any kind allowed. That could be insurance for the future.