Well, whadaya' know? A guy goes to work, tends to some business, and all kinds of things can break out on PP BB.

CFM makes an exquisitely perfect point. When 2 out of every 3 fish caught in either these large mesh gillnets or smaller mesh tangle nets (and in a former life I've used both for research) has to be released because its ESA listed, why would you use gear that causes exactly the trauma (scale loss and slime removal) that leads to high mortality? And the spring chinook in the lower Columbia that I've seen are mint bright during this time period, and most of the steelhead are pretty bright, too, although probably less sensitive than the chinook. And tidally influenced water extends all the way up to Bonneville.

CFM seldom misses a beat, and he called this one dead on. If the objective is to protect ESA chinook and steelhead, the gillnet and tangle net fisheries are inconsistent with that purpose. Those harvestable hatchery spring chinook could be trapped for harvest by making modifications to the Bonneville fish ladder system and the Willamette Falls ladder system, fully protecting ESA listed wild spring chinook and steelhead.

However - isn't there always a however or something like that? - NMFS and WDFW have conflicting legislative mandates. One mandate is to protect fishery resources, and another is to manage for commercial and recreational and (for federal agencies) treaty Indian fisheries. Consequently, the fisheries management mandate in modern times becomes self-contradictory. And management decisions are based partly on biology and partly on policy - i.e. politics. And the politics of commercial fishing insist on maintaining the traditional lower Columbia River gillnet fishery whether it makes fisheries conservation sense or not - and as it turns out, it does not.

This is real life folks. It's complex and full of conflicting and competing issues. Nothing is sacred in this pluralistic society, assuring that compromises are made. No one gets things just his or her way. Even the presumably powerful ESA gets compromised.

I'm Salmo g., and that's the Salmo report!