Forgot them kingers again

There has long been discussion out here as to why we don;t see a decrease in the king limit.

Region 6 bios said it was something they were looking at long ago, but it never seems to change.

King numbers are defintiely down in my observation, but tribal counts seem to be fine, the Quillayutes even claimed ecord numbers of king spawn when things were closed down a few years ago with the low water situation.

I would guess about 75% of kings that we legally could have kept this year went back in my boat. I encourage folks to let 'em go, and we've seen more people do so, especially in light of the jumbo hatchery silvers that are often available to us, with an increased bag and far better eating to start with.

I'm sure we lost a fair number of redds in the Hoh after this last event, but I thinkl we'll be fine for two reasons this year:

1) Many Hoh kings are trib spawners ... this is perhaps the case because of the fact we've always lost some due to floods and over time, you have better survival of the trib spawners. Elk, Winfield, and Willoughby Creeks all see large numbers of kings.

2) We saw a good return to start with with less pressure this year. Goodly numbers of fish were seen spawning and loads of carcasses! Grays Harbor streams had some kill this year and when that occurs, we always see a decrease in pressure on our kings. It's another factor that should be taken into account. If Grays Harbor has no kill and the traffic shifts, then we certainly should see a limit reduction on the kings in my book. These are real-life observations that go outside of strict harvest models and likely should be taken into account ... but seem to never factor in.

I think that the transition to seeing more wild kings released will be far slower than steelhead since they've always been considered a foodfish rather than a sportfish.

Personally, I have less trouble with a king being cracked in the head becuase you know you're only taking one generation ... the variables with the steelhead are far geater and you don't know what your impact is. To me, that unknown is what sets them apart in a strict rule vs. a suggested one.