Smalma

Your emphasis on clarifying the definitions is indeed needed to keep us all on the same sheet of music.

Your version of MSR is quite different than what I was getting at with my original post. Your description of "rationing" the fishery by restricting methods and bag limits to stretch out a longer season for a limited amount of fish is not at all what I had in mind. My version of maximum recreation refers to maximum angler-fish encounters, NOT maximum angler-days fishing over paltry runs of fish. Personally I would much rather fish fewer days knowing I can predictably encounter 15-20 fish a day and harvest zero instead of an extra long season where I have to scrape and struggle each day to even get a bite, let alone put a fish in the box.

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From the standpoint of a purely recreational salmon or steelhead fishery, what matters most to participants is ensuring sheer abundance of fish so as to maximize angler-encounters with those fish. All other things being equal, the angler experience is maximally enhanced by having lots of fish in the river.
From the beginning of this discussion, it was always about maximizing abundance. More than anything, that's what's gonna make the sportfisher happy.... predictably having lots of fish to fish over, not necessarily having the privilege to kill/harvest them. So yes, by your definition, what I was describing in my original post more closely approximates the MSA model rather than MSR. No "morphing" from MSR to MSA was ever intended.

And as your analysis concluded, escapements should probably be managed right at or just below carrying capacity (CC), assuming that escapements significantly greater than CC will not replace themselves. Surplus would be defined as any excess fish beyond CC. Those fish would be made available for harvest, C&R mortalities, and/or hatchery broodstock needs.

As far as hatchery fish go, harvest them all. Isn't that what you make the damned things for? Just stop stealing wild broodstock fish from their natural environment where they can be just as productive if not moreso than if spawned in a hatchery. At least the recruits end up contributing to further wild fish recovery instead of being converted into a harvestable fin-clipped commodity. The only time hatcheries should be allowed to mine the wild runs for eggs is when escapements are certain to exceed CC.

All gear in all fisheries must be made selective, meaning the ability to release the vast majority of non-target stocks UNHARMED to spawn!

SalmoG stated:
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However, it is the declining productivity and capacity of habitat that drives escapement goals downward. And that would happen under MSY, MSR (MSA), or an alternative between the two.
That may be true, but it is only abundance-based management that will encourage restoration of habitat and expansion of CC. Since abundance is the ultimate goal, managers would be more inclined to preserve/restore habitat. That's the paradigm shift that past and present management doesn't seem to get.

The MSY mindset could give a rip about declining CC as long as there were still fish to harvest. And that is precisely the problem with a harvest-driven management scheme. The only tool in the box is.... you guessed it.... HARVEST! As you stated, it is much more prone to errors of overharvest than underharvest, and no matter how low the MSY escapement is driven by habitat loss, there is still a provision for harvest! Why do you guys cling so tightly to this construct when you see with your own eyes its propensity to further deplete runs rather than recover them? We have done it the MSY way for the last half century. Any damned fool can see that you're not going to harvest your way out of this crisis. Isn't it time we try something different?
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"Let every angler who loves to fish think what it would mean to him to find the fish were gone." (Zane Grey)

"If you don't kill them, they will spawn." (Carcassman)


The Keen Eye MD
Long Live the Kings!