Andy is right on track with the available numbers.

Runsize forecasts are a bit of a shot in the dark... they err on both sides of under- and over-prediction. The last two years, WDFW got "lucky" and their numbers reflect that way more fish showed up than originally forecast. Recall that the 2005 PSF in the Chehalis sub-basin was 3000 fish short of escapement goal and the 2006 PSF was just within the 110% escapement buffer... basically no harvestable chinook either year. Our managers allowed 3000 Chehalis kings to perish in 2005 and at least 2700 Chehalis kings died in 2006.

The 2007 WDFW plan currently on the table is yet another sure-fire formula for over-exploitation. Think about it folks.... 501 fish for the bay comes out to a harvest rate of only 16 fish per day. Anybody out there actually believe the sport fleet is so lame that they can only muster 16 dead kings a day with hundreds of boats plying the water each day in October? Get real! I know a handful of regulars that could single-handedly blow thru those fish without blinking! That allocation will be bonked before we see three tide exchanges after the opening bell! Any takers on that bet?

The Mainstem Chehalis piece of the chinook retention season is only budgeting a kill rate of 21 fish per day. How quickly do you think sports will blow thru that allocation? With the effort we are likely to experience in GH, I give it a week max.

Last year's harvest model underestimated exploitation by a factor of four! If that's the same model they used this year ( and that's anyone's guess because they won't divulge the model... too complex for us simpletons), what makes anyone think the result will be any different?

WDFW is obviously turning a blind eye to conservation. But they are also turning a blind eye to "we the sportsman" (Hey what's new?)

Up until 2001 the bay used to open Sept 1. The past five years, that opener has been cut back to Sept 16. And our gift for 2007? Yup , we lose another two weeks of opportunity. It's one thing to restrict harvests for conservation, but there are certainly enough fish this year to feed a full salmon season beginning no later than Sept 16. As sportsmen, it's NOT just about the ability to stuff the fish box.... it's more about the opportunity to just be able to go! It's about recreation! The opprtunity to partake of what it is we are all so passionate about. They take that opportunity away and they are basically de-valuing your annual license. They've essentially taken away a month of opportunity since 2001... don't we at least deserve a pro-rated rebate on our license fees? (j/k folks... there's way more at stake here)

And finally, there is the issue of sharing the non-treaty piece with the gillnetters. Like Andy says, their chinook impacts are supposed to be limited in such a way to allow thier directed coho fishery to proceed without reducing Tier 2 recreational opportunity.

And before anybody starts throwing darts our way, I speak for the entire GH committee that the plan on the table is unequivocally CONTRARY to the principles spelled out in the document we spent countless hours crafting over the past 2 years. That managers would sanction undoing years of work in Gray Harbor in a single afternoon in Olympia is reprehensible.

So please don't try to pin these shenanigans on the dedicated members of the GH committee. For two years now, our pleas for conservation have fallen on deaf ears. And our reward? Further cutbacks in sport seasons, with more impacts allocated to the gillnetters using NON-selective gear in 2007.

Thanks WDFW, thanks. Now do us a real favor and derail this ill-contrived plan. We deserve better... WAY better. And so do the fish!