And for the record, I am not advocating this concept just to pick on commercials. The sport fleet should be held to the same standard as well... and hopefully someday it will happen. Bottom line is the participants will harvest to the full extent allowed by law. You can't blame an individual gillnetter any more than you can blame an individual sport fisher.... if it's legal to bonk, they're gonna whip out the wood shampoo! It's the gillnetter's job to fill that fishbox.... the fuller the better... to the extent allowed by law.

Sadly most "sport" fishermen seem to feel the same way.... it's their duty to limit out and fill that box.... to the extent allowed by law. The responsibility to prevent overexploiting the resource does not legally fall on the user.... it's not about "greedy" gillnetters or "greedy" sports. Let's get real here, the participants aren't realistically going to limit themselves.... it's up to a higher entity to do it for them. That accountability falls squarely on Region 6 and the harvest management strategy it puts on the table.

Given the opportunity, sports have had just as guilty a history of overharvesting the recreational allocation in the non-treaty share. Look no further back than 2006 for the chinook massacre ordained by Region 6 in MA 2-2.

The challenge that must be overcome is getting a handle on real-time recreational harvest/impact. Right now we don't know how many the sports take (took) until 18 months or more (in some instances years!) out from the date of actual harvest.

Region 6 has emphatically stated that creel data at the ramps was NEVER intended as a means of estimating in-season harvest. It begs the question, "Then what in the hay is the data even being collected for?"

Again I feel this is a complete waste to even do the creel checks if nothing ever comes of the data. We've already got the data.... let's put it to some useful purpose! If creel data is used in every other region of the state to arrive at an estimate of in-season exploitation, why don't the same mathematical laws and statistical principle apply in Grays Harbor?

I already know what the answer will be. "That takes money, staff, and time.... and given the budget crunch, there's a shortage of all three." So be it. But it's certainly something we should strive for as we move this process along. Hopefully there will still be fish around by the time we have it all figured out and have the money to pay for it.