ET, Herm,

Calling you guys stupid trailer-trash crackers won’t win your hearts and minds either, eh? Funny thing is, I’m certain that CFM, Bruce, and RA3 all know that, yet they couldn’t refrain from personal attacks. Unless I miss my guess, RA3 is hanging in here because he isn’t directing his attack at a specific person, just all those who don’t see eye to eye with him.

The WSR issue is far more emotionally charged than I would have guessed. I wonder if a single reader has had his or her opinion influenced by the several lengthy threads that have discussed it. Maybe WSR threads shouldn’t be allowed, as we’ve lost otherwise productive members who couldn’t refrain from attacking specific members they disagreed with. I’m personally opposed to censorship, however, and wouldn’t care to see significant topics placed off limits.

Grandpa,

I find it interesting that Cahill reports that fly fishers are at the forefront of the WSR advocacy. I’ve heard that fly fishers comprise about 10% of the state’s angling population, and I would have figured that most fish for non-anadromous fish. The number of fly fishers pursuing steelhead exploded in the 1980s, but I wouldn’t have guessed we number even 10% of the steelheading population yet. Of the rivers I fish, only the Skagit is well numbered with fly rods. If fly fishers are such a small proportion of the steelheading public, I would think they number too few to significantly influence a statewide policy like WSR. I’m of a mind to believe that it is steelheaders with a strong conservation bent that have exerted the influence to persuade the Commission to temporarily extend WSR to the remaining OP rivers. If I’m wrong, I’d be really interested in what, specifically, informs Cahill’s opinion that fly fishers are the primary proponents of WSR.

As for dueling scientists, is that surprising? Facts may be facts, but many a conclusion is inferential, or opinion, based on personal interpretation of a set of facts. I see the phrase “best available science” every day at work and have to laugh. Who, with an IQ that would get them in out of the rain, to eloquently quote Herm, would admit to using less than the best available science to support their opinion? If the phrase ever had any meaning, it’s long since lost.

Herm & Geoduck,

It might seem as though the issue is one of reducing impacts to wild steelhead. However, fisheries management is more than biology and ecology. If it was just those, the solution is simple: close all fishing. Period. Management has always had two other major elements other than natural science. They are social and economic elements, social science if you will, and the yardsticks for measurement are different from the natural sciences in important ways. And there are often more than one way to achieve an intended outcome, hence the debate and arguing about which are the best alternatives to attain the desired outcome, which is effective conservation for most of us - I hope.

As has been stated repetitively here, WSR is not the one key action to recovery, even tho the antis just as repetitively respond as tho the advocates have insisted it is the silver bullet. Smalma has reminded the group that WSR contributes to recovery only when over-harvest is limiting productivity. Assuming we know all that we need to know for effective stock management, that is true. The one thing WSR will do on every river is put more spawners on the spawning grounds. On some rivers it will have no effect on productivity. On others, it likely will make the difference between making escapement and not. And on still other rivers, the effect simply won’t be known because there remain too many unknowns about those stocks.

Reading these threads has been a lot like observing personal management and investment philosophies. Some are conservative, and some are risk-takers. Some would harvest only when they are certain that conservation is assured. Others would harvest until it was certain that harvest was the direct and certain cause of loss of production, at which point they would forego harvest. The former wish to avoid repeating the errors of past management. The latter insist that every error be repeated, at least once, or they don’t see it as an error at all; it’s just the dynamics of the management style they prefer. Some folks stick with Blackjack; some prefer the roller coaster ride of craps and roulette.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.