jimh,

Well, yes. While everyone was fighting about who gets to net, and who doesn't, and arresting everyone, and celebrities were having "fish ins" with Billy Frank, the entire ecosystem that steelhead depend on for living was being destroyed...by the time fishing for wild fish was almost completely stopped except for incidental mortality in hatchery fish seasons (net or sport), the environment they need to live had gained about 700% in people, pavement, and pollution, and the rivers had been dammed, diked, the water taken out, and crappy water being put in.

The reason why the stocks did not rebound when the harvest was stopped is that harvest, by then, was not the limiting factor in the survival of the fish...their environment was...and still is.

Some streams may have been pushed to the point of extinction by harvest, but there is little to no harvest on those streams now, incidental or otherwise.

Pointing fingers at past harvest policies may feel good, and pointing at the tribes always feels good, since we don't have to take responsibility then for anything, but neither of those things will do squat to bring fish back.

Fish need to have rivers and waters to spawn in, and places to feed and rear, and those places are mere shadows of what they were in the past...at least in Puget Sound.

If you want to look at harvest, look at the coastal streams...they have excellent habitat for the most part, but are harvested to death, by the tribes and by the sporties. Even worse, look at the Chehalis system that is harvested to death and suffers from ever deteriorating habitat, as well...I predict that so far as steelhead go, the SW WA ESU will be number 6 out of the total of 7 ESU's to join the ESA list.

Fish on...

Todd