FishnPhysician -
While you posted your questions/comments ont he WSR management questions thread I'll reply here.
1) Review and adjusted of escapement goals is not done on a regular bases but rather as new information is developed. While in an ideal world your suggestion would be nice it would require resources (time) that is in limited supply.

2) Reagarding lower MSY levels with lower survivals - while this maybe be scary it is how the biological world works. Remember if the MSY escapement level drops due to lower productivivity the number of harvestable or the allowable harvest rate also drops. Clearly this confirms the need to protect and restore our river system's habitats as the top priority in maintianing wild fish abundances. It is an unfortunate reality that the carrying capaicty for most species today on most river systems is lower than MSY levels a century ago - in some cases much lower.

3) Regarding management imprecision - not sure I understand your question -typically if there is a escapement goal it is based on the best estimate under "average conditions". What it attempted to point out was that is now common to leave a "fudge factor" in setting harvestable numbers to help cover the management imprecision. It is for this reason that on stocks that consistently produce harvestable fish the average escapement is commonly greater than the escapement goal.

4) Exploitation rate management - As I understand it your concern is that if runs are smaller than expected less people will fish. From the fish's point of view this how it should be. There would be less fishing/harvest on runs poorer than expect and more on runs higher than expect - exactly the direction of errors that should occur if one wishes to error on the side of the fish.

5) Regarding over-escapements - In the past it was common to consider that managment of a run that had escapements larger than its goal to be considered to be a management failure. Genreally today that is not the case. Most would consider goals to targets to match of exceed.

6) I believe the MSY goal for the Quillayute steelhead is 5,900. The fact the several years the escapement has consistently been over 10,000 belies your concern that the management is designed to catch every last harvestable fish.

7) It would be one heck of a steelhead river that could sustain 5,500 steelhead entering the river on each tide for any period of time.

Do you really expect that the number of steelhead returning to a river the size of the Samish to be the same as that to the Skagit?

Something folks tend to loss track of is that the abundances of various salmonids in a given system is a reflection of the types and abundances of various habitats found in that system. One system may be have a large steelhead population while another of comparable size but with a differrent habitat mix have a small steelhead population but a large coho or pink or cutthroat population.

Tight lines
Smalma