POS,

At tomorrow's hearing WDFW, on behalf of Reg. 5 harvest managers, will be requesting the WDFW Commission to submit the proposal to NOAA/NMFS Fisheries.

If the Commission gives the go ahead, then WDFW will petition the Feds for the increase, who will then have to re-open the BiOp and assess whether or not it's biologically defendable.

Which means...first we try to convince the Commission tomorrow that they ought not take Region 5 up on their request. If that happens, end of story.

If the Commission agrees to do it (which I think would be reprehensible...no biological or economic reason for it), then we go to the Feds and ask them to NOT approve the request.

At the very least, this should take the Feds quite a while to study, and I'm sure that WDFW will want an answer ASAP as the season is almost here. After studying it (which may be too late for this year anyway), they ought to find it's a bunch of B.S. intended to make it more "fair" by putting a few extra hundred grand in the pockets of a few commercial fishermen at the expense of several listed steelhead and salmon runs, plus at the expense of many tens of millions of local dollars that the extended recreational spring chinook season would generate.

Fish on...

Todd.