Gentlemen --
First the general crash of wild steelhead populations in much of western Washington/southern BC has had little to do with how those populations were managed. Populations crashed on rivers where harvest was allowed, on rivers closed to fishing, and rivers managed "correctly" (that is strictly WSR with no hatchery fish). The underlining problem appears to be that we have entered a period of very low marine survival and a continue decline in our river's habitats. Clearly conservative management is needed and that is just what is currently being provided in those areas of poor returns - WSR while the hatchery fish are in the river and no spring CnR if the expected run is less than 80% of the escapement goal. There are no magic wands to correct poor survival conditions.

A further Illustration - When WSR was first applied to western Washington streams in the early and mid 1980s populations respond quite positivity. Escapements often double in less than 5 years. Today the recent returns continue to decline rapidly regardless of the management. WSR is not a silver bullet - just a tool to alocate fishing impacts.

Many seem to feel that all steelhead management needs is just WSR for management. Would you allow WSR fishing under all conditions? Would the amount of CnR be influenced by the status of the poplation? Are escapement goals needed?

In determining the status (health) of a wild population what escapement goal would you measure returns against? Rich suggested carrying capacity as a goal - my difficulty with that is no fishing would ever be allowed as any fishing would cause a short fall in reaching the goal. Salmo suggest an "ecological functional escapement goal". How could anyone disagree with such a motherhood and apple goal however Im not sure that I know what that means?

Salmo -
In my 10% example I stated that if both fisheries had the same impact (in this case 10%) there was no biological difference. However as you point out there are potential differences in amount of recreation being produced. I'm suggesting that maybe if your arguments may be on sounder footing if approached from that direction.

WSR is not by itself a buffer for poor run sizes unless there are management action to be taken in the event of forecasted poor runs. In all the talk of WSR I have heard no firm suggests of the management adjustments to be used with WSR. Again what sort of escapement bench mark to be used? What management actions to be taken if the goal is not being met?

Double haul -
Nate's and Dick's input seems to imply that the 2003 escapement (11,200 with a goal of 5,900) on the Quileyette was not good enough. If 190% of the MSY is not enough what would be?

The testimony indicated that there has been a substantial increase in interest in harvesting wild fish on the coast. How can that be if few anglers wish to harvest a fish? Could it be that the great mass of anglers is less than unified in their desires?

They indicated that there is a concern about the decline in the quality of the fishery. Is that the goal -fishing by like minded anglers? If so what is next - limited entery?

Regarding WSC's steelhead paper - shortly after it was released (by the way a nice job) detailed comments were provided via a forum on WSC's web site and the Fly fishing forum. It generated very little interest or comments either from the WSC membership or the public. Does anyone care? Apparently not!

In short I woud like to see something more to a proposal than just never harvest a fish and things will be OK. As with other anadromous salmonids I expect we will see shifts of abundances and when (next year or several decades from now) we enter a period of high steelhead returns -say 5 to 10 times than today's returns why preclude the potential for some harvest if anglers desire?. If the expectation is that most anglers are to buy into your proposals then an increase understanding of WSR, its role in management, when it would be applied and when would there be no fishing, etc. It is my opinion that the resource benefits when anglers become informed and think about these issues.

Less anyone questions where are my proposals I would refer any interested reader to the first post that I ever made on this site were I put forth a detail set of proposed steelhead management guidelines.

Tight lines
Smalma