Salmo-
I guess the biggest point that I was trying to make is that many issues are viewed as being "not that much of a problem" because of innacuracy in numbers or perception of a matter relating to the recovery of salmon and steelhead. Points proving this are things like the article that Bob posted the other day concerning numbers of fish on the reds that were counted that were really not there for the purpose of inflating the run size prediction so more harvest could take place. The tribes saying they netted way less fish than they actually did etc etc. Sorry if I didn't illustrate my point very well......not a great writer like some. Get an idea in my head and it just doesn't come out right sometimes. Hell....this probably didn't either.

One of my biggest problems with the process is that it seams like the "other" user groups in these discussions don't seam to be held to the same level of accountability as the sport fishing community. When we have a quota for a certain fishery and it is fullfilled we have the season shut down with little notice. Is anybody actually monitering the commercial/tribal end of the harvest or do we just take for granted the numbers that they report to us?

After reading the little thread over on Gamefishin.......even if we do end up having a c & r season, hopefully this will serve as a wakeup call for all of our fisheries and serve to motivate people to become more active in the political end of our sport and not take this all for granted. I really think we hold more cards than we think we do.....we just need to play them correctly as a team. 4 aces in 4 different poker hands are not nearly as powerful as 4 aces in the SAME hand.

Tim