Rich,

You suggest that I am wrong for not thanking you and your affiliate organizations for your concern about the direction our wild steelhead runs are going and bringing to attention their plight. OK! Thank you for your concern but the attention you have drawn to their plight is reminiscent of the 'Chicken Little and the sky is falling' approach towards promoting your statewide C&R agenda.

You have worked hard to create a sense of need and urgency to impose Mandatory Wild Steelhead Release (MWSR); supposedly to prevent a perceived universal spiraling decline to extinction. You claim that we must stop the killing but at the same time you promote year-round catch and release of wild steelhead with the associated incidental maiming and mortality that is inevitably associated with hooking and handling.

The real truth is that the Hoh River and many others have healthy populations very capable of sustaining a prudent amount of harvest. On the Hoh River the average returns over the five-year period ending in 2003 have been about 198%, or nearly double, the spawning escapement goal and after an average harvest of 41% of the total return the escapement goal has been exceeded by an average of 17%.

Let's assume that you are correct about the 2003/04 pre-season run-size forecast calling for 4,453 fish, and that the co-managers agreed to a harvest allocation of 1,395 fish for the Hoh tribe and 668 for sport fishers. They knew that with the current non-tribal harvest restrictions a maximum of approximately 15% of the total run or about 668 fish for total non-tribal harvest out of a total harvestable excess of 2,053 might be realized.

The 2003/04 season is now water under the bridge but it is interesting that the 15% non-treaty maximum harvest rate continues into the harvest management plan in the Boldt Case Settlement signed on July 13, 2004.

If you bother to do your addition you will notice that the tribal share you mention as being 1,395 fish is sufficient to provide for an escapement of 2,390 fish or just 10 less than the goal of 2,400, not 2,360 as you suggest. Except for the an 10 fish anomaly the tribal harvest is very much like that which would be provided for under the Boldt Case settlement or specifically 1,385 and 668 fish for tribal and non-tribal allocations.

The tribe was allocated roughly double the non-tribal allocation because of the non-tribal harvest limitations. You can use whatever terminology you want to describe how the tribe got the bigger half but I call it the re-allocation of missed harvest opportunity.

So unless it does make a difference to yourself and the WSC who kills the fish you are wasting time and resources pushing for sport harvest restrictions that only serve to shift the take from the non-tribal to the tribal fishermen.

Consider that you could accomplish something closer to your goal of getting more fish on the spawning beds by negotiating with the WDFW and the Tribes for higher escapement goals. Again, the federal court rulings provide that MSY is the 'law of the land' but, because of the small monetary value of the steelhead, the Tribal leaders might be amenable to agreeing to higher escapements for ascetic reasons and the non-tribal stakeholders might also agree.

Well, at the least it is food for thought.