Todd –
I’m not sure what it is that you found not to be accurate? Maybe I’m just confused again.

In what I have chosen to call the WSC harvest model was it incorrect to say that it is based on:
1) The best science? Or
2) That the management option that best protects resource given its status be selected? Or
3) Adopt that management option statewide? Or
4) That we should not be targeting ESA listed fish?

All that I have done is expand the issue from the Boldt Case area to a state wide level. Clearly at the statewide level steelhead populations are in serious trouble (as evident by the population conditions referred to in the fact sheet). As you so clearly stated earlier in this discussion: "whattayasay we don't manage the fisheries into oblivion like we did to the rest of the state?"

You mentioned the Quillayute and used it as an example. In this arena perhaps a more interesting example would be a river system that had a run size that was just a few hundred fish above its escapement objective. In this case the hooking mortality could just as easily produce impacts that would reduce the run to less than the escapement objective just like the harvest model. Where is the resource protection cushion in this example?

Clearly as I have argued for more than 25 years a CnR fishery is likely to produce more angler days of recreation per dead fish than a harvest only fishery. However the argument for the moratorium has been the needed to rebuilt depressed populations and to prevent a slide in the populations that are not currently depressed.

Many folks seem to feel that the moratorium will result in more fishing opportunities. I don’t see how unless folks expect to target wild fish on populations expected to be less than escapement objectives. Certainly on runs above goals by allocating fish that would previously would have been harvest to a CnR fishery should result in better fishing (more fish to catch) for those that participate in that type of fishing. Whether that will produce more over all fishing trips is still an unknown – it depends on whether the better CnR catch rates will attract enough increased angler trips to off set those lost from the “bonkers” dropping out.

Tight lines
S malma