A year or so ago I did an analysis of the catch of wild steelhead in this state (it may still be in the archives of this or other boards). This was before we went to the 1 steelhead retention per year on the 12 or 13 streams that allow that. The study was based on numbers attained from the NWIFC (Northwest Indian Fishing Commission) and WDFW. Now, I recognize that there may be some who contend that one or the other of those agencies have bogus numbers. My contention is that they likely both have bogus numbers and that the real catch of wild steelhead is higher by both tribal and sportsmen. What I found out is that the sportsmen had a significantly higher catch (and kill) of wild steelhead than did the tribes in virtualy every year that I looked at. The fundamental issue is that we (as sportsmen) look at our individual effort and catch, and then extrapolate that against the tribal nets. Reality - we must look at ourselves as a group, and when we do that, we find that there are thousands of wild steelhead killed every year by us (at least in the years that I studied). Once again, in the interest of fairness, I believe that the last year I studied was 2004 (the last year that I found figures from both sides.

Something to think about.