OK, I got a little carried away with my 5500 fish per tide comment. Maybe for salmon, but not steelhead. Sorry, that was a gross misrepresentation.

And no, I don't mean to imply that escapement goals for one system are interchangeable with the next.

I am encouraged to hear that overshooting the escapement goal is no longer considered a "failure" by fish managers.

But let's look at the recent trend of 10,000 plus escapements for the Quillayute system. You have conceded that over-escapements are not a failure, but at what point would it be considered a failure? 30% overescapement, 40%, 50%... what? Here we have a specific example of a system that is 80% plus "over-escaped"... is that a bad thing?

I would think not. Perhaps the actual return per spawner may be less in these "over-escaped" brood years (relative productivity of the brood year on a per capita basis), but the absolute numbers of returning fish might actually be higher (absolute productivity of the brood year in aggregate). Does that make sense?

It seems to me that the system is not truly in any danger of over-escapement until the actual carrying capacity of the habitat is exceeded. I doubt there is any immediate danger of that happening.

Has anyone considered the possibility that the reason the Quillayute runs have been so strong lately is because 10,000 plus spawners are seeding the river gravel each year, with the vast majority of them contributing to the nutrient biomass that sustains the next generation? Might the addition of 3500-4000 more carcasses actually help to improve the productivity of the system?