There's two major flaws with that argument. The first and most obvious is that there's no where they're going to find every redd. Unlike hatchery fish, the natives don't all return to a single, central point to spawn. They can spawn anywhere in the river and in most cases, there's no way the redds would be visible.

The other problem is that they would have known what the redd count was 2 or 3 years ago when they set the season to end March 16. I doubt the number of redds in 2000 - 2002 have changed since the regulation pamphlet for this year was published. That argument just doesn't hold water. If they knew in advance this would be a poor run, why would they set the season to end March 16?