Todd

I have a copy of the Cindy's proposal which is many pages long and well prepared. I got it months ago but can't remember where I got it. Did you get one back then and where did it come from? It actually is quite professionally prepared and looks like it probably cost WDFW region 5 a bundle to assemble. If I wasn't a sports fisherman the proposal could look sensible.

The previous reference to the 21,000 steelhead killed in a previous Springer netfest was actually what prompted this new kill request. It was not that the gill netters and tangle netters stayed withing the 2% ESA rule and caught that many steelhead by accident (hahaha). They had a short net season and caught those steelhead pushing them way over the allowable bycatch....Oh Well!!! They would say. But this caused a huge uproar and really curtailed the next opportunity to net. So now they want to go back to what they did before when they caught so many steelhead in the process of accessing the healthy run of Springers. Once everybody saw that the only way the nets could catch more Springers was to kill an unacceptable level of ESA fish they had no choice but to ask for an exemption from the ESA rules which are based on science and not on giving the gill netters a bigger bounty at any cost.

I suspect alot of user groups on the Columbia would be licking their chops at the thought of tripling the ESA mortality number. Less of a problem for those who could care less about the survival of the wild fish.