Ok. What Todd says about escapement numbers , total catch, are the tribes getting over 50% of the harvestable fish? Having the facts. I think this is a great point. We should be able to look at solid numbers and regulate or fisheries on these numbers. I do think the state has a decent idea of the sport catch by checking a certain percentage of fishermen and doing the math from there. I feel pretty good about the fact thaty when they say we have enough quota to say....fish halibut another day that the data to support this is fairly accurate. I don't feel as good about the tribal data. I will give you 2 reasons why.

I was talking to the father of a tribal commercial crabber at a boat launch I would guess maybe 6 yrs ago. He was non tribal but married a woman that was. We had a friendly conversation about crabbing and he actually told me that the tribes were able to sell alot more crab than they reported. I have also seen huge piles of crab dumped just off a boat launch that i use. I am guessing the crab had died and couldnt be sold to the buyer. Are these counted against their allocation? This pile was so big that it stunk and it was never exposed to the atmosphere even at low tide. I know this isn't salmon but it makes me skeptical.

Another point is...(and please correct me if im wrong) the river tribal fisheries as well as the ocean fisheries go on until there are no fish left to be caught. I can't recall hearing or seeing either fisheries stopped because they caught their quota... like the sport fisheries constantly do. I would like to hear if this is incorrect, sincerely. I have only heard of it happening in emergency situations. If it is the norm than do they never get their 50%? Are they always coming up just shy?