So long as the tribal fishers are following the law, and the co-managers are setting seasons that are fair, then I think it is a function of equality that we honor the promise that was made in the treaties...

Here's a hypothesis...I don't know for sure if it is true, but I suspect that it is fairly accurate...

1. There is a number of coho in the Duwamish River.

2. That number is many times more than is required for wild and hatchery escapement.

3. There are tens of thousands of harvestable coho.

4. Ideally, that number of harvestable coho ought to be divided up equally between tribal and non-tribal fishers.

5. Non-tribal recreational fishermen catch those Duwamish coho in the ocean, in the Straits, in the San Juans, in Puget Sound, all the way down into Elliott Bay, in the Duwamish Waterway, and in the Green River itself.

6. Non-tribal commercial fishermen catch those Duwamish coho in the ocean, in the Straits, in the San Juans, in Puget Sound, all the way down into Elliott Bay.

7. The Muckleshoot Tribe catches those Duwamish coho in the Duwamish Waterway.

Those first six parts are facts...not guesses, and not suppositions...those are facts.

The next few are possibilities...

7. The non-tribal fishers, sporties plus commercials, who have been fishing over the Duwamish Coho all year, catch more than the Muckleshoots do.

8. The non tribal fishers, sporties plus commercials, who have been fishing over the Duwamish coho all year, catch the same as the Muckleshoots do.

9. The non-tribal fishers, sporties plus commercials, who have been fishing over the Duwamish coho all year, catch less than the Muckleshoots do.

One of those three must be the case...there are no other options.

If it's number 7, the non-tribals are catching more, then there is nothing to complain about except the unsightliness of seeing those nets there...if unsightliness were the benchmark for fisheries then virtually every terminal recreational fishery should be closed, too.

If it's number 8, then there is nothing to complain about...

If it's number 9, then what do you do about it?

Even as the fisheries are set up now there are tens of thousands of extra coho making it back to the river and the hatchery...they're obviously not being overharvested.

The non-tribal sporties have last crack at those tens of thousands of extra coho...from the foot bridge all the way up to Soos Creek they are the only ones fishing for them.

The sporties are fully incapable of catching any more coho than they do...period...if they were capable of doing it, there wouldn't be 40,000 extra fish making it back to the hatchery...those fish don't fly there, they swim around and through the nets, and right past all the anglers.

How, then, can we even out the catch between the tribal and non-tribal fishers?

Well, there are only two possibilities...

1. Open up a non-tribal commercial net fishery in the Duwamish Waterway so that the non-tribals can harvest their half.

2. Reduce the hatchery plants by 90% so that the sporties actually can harvest half the fish...this would greatly restrict not only the amount of tribal netting in the Duwamish, but would pretty much make it so that no one gets to catch many at all...but the "not many" that are there to be caught will be caught equally, at least.

So...which one do you like better? Add a non-tribal commercial fishery to catch "our" half...or just remove 90% of the fish so that we can catch "our" half...?

Which is it?

Fish on...

Todd

P.S. There were several anglers fishing above the nets this morning, and there were fish plapping all around them, upstream from the nets...