the biggest myth floating around the cca camp is that when the commercials go to a more selective way of fishing with a lower release mortality rate that they wont be allowed to catch any more fish than they do now.
You only have had to been through the CR commercial/sport battles a few times to see that the commercials have continually been demanding "parity" with sports fishing's harvest. "50/50" has been their testimony, particularly on Spring Chinook.
They were given it with Summer Chinook, and they're above 50% on fall chinook and off the chart on coho....
Implement commercial methods that have an equal or less mortality rate than hook&line and the commercials will likely get what they want ONE HALF of the spring chinook harvest.And since we're up against the limits of the catch-balancing agreements with the Tribes, there's no "surplus" of hatchery springers to give to the commercials without impacting sports fishers.
What sports anglers are guaranteed to get through "selective commercial harvest" is an invigorated commercial fleet, more competition through the year and harder-fought allocation battles without end.
"Selective harvest" advocates began with the faulty premise that commercial harvest is necessary on the mainstem Columbia River and went south from there.
Really too bad....
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