FishNDoc -
In much of western Washington under federal court orders the management of our steelhead and salmon resources is a co-manager effort between WDFW and the local treaty tribes. The escapement goal is one that has been agreed to by the co-managers. Federal court orders and WDFW wildlife commision policy require that those goals be at MSY though the parties can agree to larger goals if both parties agree. Those goals are typically set based on the best information available at the time. As new information is developed we periodically see the goals reviewed and if needed new ones established.

You are correct in that there are a variety of escapements that would be at MSY depending on survival conditions. When survival conditions are poor the escapements that would produce maximum harvests is lower than when those conditions are better. Generally the established MSY goal would that point that produces the most harvestable fish under average conditions - approximately mid-point between the extremes. Not much different than what you proposed. An example - recent work with Skykomish chinook show that over that last 35 years the average MSY escapement level was about 6,000 spawners. Under the low survival conditions seem in that time period the MSY escapement level was about 3,600 fish and under high survival conditions it was about 10,000. Under the best conditions harvest rates could be as high as 80% while under poor conditions the rate maybe only something like 30%.

Often in todays management the managers also consider what they can management imprecision - how sloppy their management is. In this case the harvest number is reduced by some factor depending on estimates of the amount of past management imprecision.

Another common management strategy today is to use exploitation rate management models rather strict harvest numbers. It is often easier and more accurate to structure exploitation rate fisheries. Most sport anglers are familar with this type of management as most sport season are of this type - a season of X length will catch Y portion of the run.

The management of wild coho fisheries in Puget Sound illustrate another iteration in the management scheme. In this case the managers looked at the productivity at MSY of the stocks in question at a variety of survival conditions. At poor conditions/returns a low harvest rate is used, at good conditions/returns a higher rate is used. A typcial example would be if returns are expected to be in the "low range" perhaps the allowed fishing rate would be 40% while if it was in the "high range" the rate might be 60%.

Something to keep in mind - except for us wild steelhead fanatics much of the angling public and society as a whole view steelhead as just another salmonid and would consider a management scheme that allowed some extraction of the resource to be acceptable.

Hope I haven't creat more questions than answers.

Todd -
I believe that federal courts have interpretated escapement goals under Boldt to be at MSY level rather than minimal viability level (Puget Sound Salmon Management plan).

I certainly hope that your assessment of "foregone opportunity" is correct. I for one am not sure how a federal court would rule if that issue was place in front of it.

Tight lines
Smalma