Micro 101,

Harvest is nearly always an issue. But when does harvest result in over-harvest? Only when it occurs with gillnets? If you cannot look in the mirror and see that overharvest - period - regardless of gear type, is the important point, then you'll never understand how to manage and preserve a fish population.

During most of the 1990s it was allowable to kill wild steelhead on the Skagit up to March 15 each season. The Skagit tribes focused their steelhead gillnet fishery on the early running hatchery stock. At the end of each season, when the harvest analysis was complete, it turned out that the sport fishery was responsible for 80 to 90% of the wild steelhead harvested, not the gillnet fishery. So it doesn't work to allege that treaty gillnets alone are the problem with our steelhead stocks.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.