"It maybe that the ocean survival conditions for both species is very favorable and that outweights the competition factors you have speculated about."

Might it also be that river habitat sucks so bad that due to the relatively short time they spend in the river as juveniles they are able to exploit areas that are not of sufficient quality to support coho, Chinook, and especially steelhead anymore?

"Further if indeed the worst case happens and the returns are well below expected I'm sure that most of us would hope that management would respond to that situation."

And when would management respond? By curtailing harvest rates four years from now? Fat lot of good that would do this year's run...

One of three things is happening...

1. The commercial fishers in the Sound are catching waaayyy more than expected, resulting in a showing of fish in the river that is very low.

A good response would be to end the fishery now, then, if they are experiencing higher success rates than expected. It looks like anecdotal evidence cited above shows that this may be a possibility, depending on who you ask.

2. The commercial fishers in the Sound are catching waaayyy fewer than expected, and the reason that there are so few fish in the rivers is that there are very few fish...period.

A good response would be to end the fishery now, then, if the run is apparently way below forecast. Again, depending on who you ask, anecdotal evidence may point to the possibility that the run is 2/3 less than forecast.

3. The fish are late...so no response.

Unfortunately, this is exactly the "management response" that we will get...nothing. If the fish are late, which conclusion there is absolutely no evidence to support, then perhaps things will be fine. the earlier portion of the run will be wiped out, but at least overall abundance will be there.

What if the fish aren't late, but just aren't coming at all? By the time we find out, since our management response was "nothing", it will be too late, and escapement will be missed.

Missing escapement is part of the vagaries of run size variation...everyone knows that.

Missing escapement due to overharvest when the run size was sufficent to make escapement is par for the course, unfortunately, when the first goal of both agencies involved, NWIFC and WDFW, is to harvest first, ask questions later.

Yeah, we pay lip service to "resource first" management, but it's bogus, and most everyone already knows that, too.

That will be our "management response"...do absolutely nothing, and hope for the best.

When "the best" doesn't materialize, then we'll shut down fishing four years form now...maybe. Maybe we'll just average the run sizes for the past five years and call that the "next generation's run forecast", and just go out and overharvest them again.

Until "mangement response" includes in season management, we will always err on the side of overharvest.

Fish on...

Todd