WDFW and ODFW were shamed into this arrangement. Cindy has been reassinged and Steve is retiring early over their intial plan to allow commercials 3 times the mortality take on wild fish and ESA listed fish. Their plan sought to ask NMFS for the exemption to allow a 7% mortality instead of the 2% normally allowed.. Most WDFW and ODFW personnel were blind sided by the proposal Cindy and Steve tried to force through. Director Koenings had his name on the letter asking for the triple kill ....He was pissed as were people on the commission and in ODFW...Oregon had already gone against preliminary plans and caved to the plan to give commercial the lion;s share of the fish but the public outcry was tremendous...so here we are with what we deserve after all...

Remember that the tribes mortality level is 13% or more than 6 times what the rest of us get away with....They get that ridiculous kill rate on wild and ESA listed salmon and steelhead because they threaten to sue over the dams if they don't get their way....So we cave in again.

Bottom line is that the commercials can still overharvest like last year and shut the sports season down but if they do the uproar would be unbelieveable...We'll see what happens...At the end of the day the tribes will get their 50% along with mass amounts of wild steelhead and we may get a month long season or we might get shut down in a week.

The good part is that the people who tried to pull a fast one and tip the scales towards their commercial cronies will be punished. ....for a change.