H20

I believe that you are wrong. WDFW did not make this recommendation! You need to read what WDFW final Proposals were to the Commissioners. Jerry has them and he can email them, if you think that I am wrong. This was not an "agency recommendation" as you claim.

"Commissioner R.P. Van Gytenbeek of Seattle initiated the discussion about requiring the release of wild steelhead by calling for a permanent ban on wild steelhead retention. When that motion failed, the commission considered and rejected the idea of a six-year moratorium before scaling it back to two years.

"In this case, I think a half a loaf is better than no loaf at all," Van Gytenbeek said. "A lot of people in this state are concerned about the decline of our wild steelhead stocks and I think a moratorium gets us started down the right path."

Commission Chair Will Roehl of Bellingham did not share that view, noting that the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) is currently working on a new comprehensive plan for steelhead management, tailored to specific stocks.

"I can't support banning retention of wild steelhead on rivers where stocks are healthy and returns are strong," Roehl said. "I don't think this broad-brush action is warranted, but that appears to be the will of commission."

"As for the science behind it," he said, "commissioner Russ Cahill (in Olympia) told me it was pretty much a matter of whose biologists you believed. Our (state) people told him that even on a down cycle in the natural flux of things, we're easily meeting our wild steelhead spawning escapement goals on those (Peninsula) rivers. Biologists for the proponent groups, on the other hand, told him the runs are declining, period. With no clear consensus, he said he was forced to vote conservatively for the resource."

Yes they voted, but it was against the agencies recommendation.

That why Plunker is so pi$$ed too!
Cowlitzfisherman