Based on the response to this thread, it should have been no surprise that I would be the lone private sportfisher represented in a meeting room full of commercial trollers and charterboat captains.

Gloom and doom permeated the room.

The biggest constraint on the ocean fishery is an 8% cap on LCR coho impacts. One troller bemoaned that ESA-listing of LCR coho was rejected because the fish have already been functionally extirpated... his point was why should the ocean be constrained by fish that are already toast?

Trollers are looking at weekly caps of perhaps 40-60 chinook and 25 coho. Lower caps are being touted to discourage Oregon boats from participating. Lots of cries calling for planting more fish to save the industry.

Recreational side definitely wants maximum access to the available chinook... hence two Options on the table for an early May-June chinook-only opener when the harvest models predict almost no interception of coho. The sticking point is whether or not a 1-fish bag in the early opener is a marketable product for the charter fleet. Key PFMC council members ackowledge one is better than none. The charter fleet is worried that they would have a hard time selling a trip with a 1-fish bag. They are torn between that or holding out for Option 3, a June 8 general opener with a 2-fish bag but only one king. Effectively that's still a one-king bag, especially since they will try their darndest to lay off the coho as much as is humanly possible. The perception that it's a 2-fish bag just has a nicer ring to it for the purposes of marketing the trip.

I testified that while two kings would be great, sports aren't gonna turn their nose up at a 1-fish bag if it gets us on the water early to access the stronger chinook run. The coho quota for the general Westport salmon season will be in the range of 4600-8600 coho. That may only last 3-4 weeks TOPS if it fishes anything like last year ( 4962 caught at the end of the third week, 7291 caught at the end of 4 weeks)... GAME OVER with perhaps as few as only 2200-2500 chinook caught!

That would be disastrous since there are 12,000-14,000 available chinook in PFMC Options 1 and 2.