So snit,

I agree that big C wild kings can probably support some harvest (at least the hanford reach fish). But its also pretty clear that some OP rivers could support some wild steelhead harvest many years. Yet most seem to believe a wild steelhead moratorium was merited. Using the same logic you'd have to protect the wild kings in the big C.

As for canadian harvest of puget sound kings off vancouver Island that's probably a topic for another discussion, but I think it has to do with politics.

Washington commerical fishers and tribes take lots of Fraser sockeye in the straits and san juans, so the candaians take lots of our chinook and coho off vancouver island to repay the favor. I think this might be outlined in the last candaian/us fishing treaty. Basically the upshot is the american sportsmen get screwed. The candians catch all our catchable PS chinook (and usually the lions share of coho), while the netters get the compensation by catching Fraser sockeye. Sportsfishers pay the price and the tribes and commercials reap the benefits, what a crock.

I've been told by biologists that the reason the coho fishing has been so good the past few years is that the candians haven't been able to fish for coho off vancouver Island because they've fished their resident coho into oblivion, so to let them recover they quit most of their commercial troll fishery for coho. Thus we get most of our coho back from the ocean instead of the usual 50% loss after the candian trollers take their cut.

At any rate, I think the next time the US/Canda salmon treaty is up for negotiation we as a group need to be in attendence to make sure we don't get the shaft again (or at least to the same degeree). This BS of trading Washington endangered chinook for fraser sockeye needs to be ended.