FNP,

I'm also a CCA member, but I have a different take on this that is similar to Todd's and Boater's. Let me lay it out.

First, the LCR gillnet fleet does not fish mop up behind the recreational fishery. They have fished upstream of part of the recreational fleet only last year to avoid intercepting Willamette fish, which returned below escapement goal level. Generally the gillnet fleet fishes the same water or downstream of the recreational fleet. Any assumptions about relegating the gillnet fleet to upstream of the recreational fishery are just that, assumptions. Further, such assumptions are incorrect because of the substantial recreational fishery upstream of Bonneville.

Next, the ESA allowable take is just that, allowed, and it will be taken, so no additional wild chinook will reach the spawning grounds. So this is not a conservation conflict as no conservation will occur. That makes it an allocation conflict, in which case I wouldn't frame in as greed. I think of it as highest and best use of a limited public resource. That is, more social and economic benefit accrues to society from recreationally caught salmon than from commercially caught salmon. This doesn't make it greed; it makes the argument one of common sense.

For those who have been having trouble understanding this argument, here's a simple arithmetic model (there are other variables omitted to maintain simplicity that don't change the concept):

Assume a total above Bonneville spring chinook run size (what the fishery and ESA impacts are based on) of 200,000 chinook, of which 20% or 40,000 are wild and 160,000 are hatchery origin. The ESA allowable take is 15% or 6,000 wild chinook. Of those, 13% or 5,200 are allocated to the upstream treaty fishery which is preponderantly commercial in case anyone isn't noticing. And 2% or 800 are allocated to and split between the non-treaty commercial and sport fisheries.

Recently the split has been 60% recreational, or 480 wild chinook, and 40% or 320 wild chinook are allocated to the gillnet fleet. At 18% incidental mortality in the commercial fleet, they are allowed to catch up to 1,778 wild chinook before their 320 incidental mortalities are "used up" to harvest 8,890 hatchery chinook.

Now, if the commercial fleet adopts a selective fishing method with say only a 5% incidental mortality, they will be allowed to catch up to 6,400 wild chinook before their 320 incidental mortalities are "used up" to harvest 32,000 hatchery chinook.

At 32,000 hatchery chinook harvested, there will be 23,110 fewer hatchery chinook in the river being fished by recreational anglers. OK, out of 160,000 hatchery chinook in the run, that is only a reduction of about 14.5%.

Now let's look at the sport fishery. The incidental mortality estimate used is 10%. With a wild incidental mortality of 480 chinook, the recreational fleet is allowed to catch up to 4,800 wild chinook before the incidental mortalities are used up to harvest 24,000 hatchery chinook.

The question is whether the reduction of 23,110 fewer hatchery fish (due to selective commercial fishing) in the river adversely affect sport fishing? Any significant reduction in the number of fish present in the river on any given day reduces the number of fish caught in a sport fishery. Is a 14.5% reduction significant?

You can bet that the fishery management agencies will consider the impact to sport fishing as insignificant and more than worth it because it removes an additional 23,110 hatchery fish that "might" potentially spawn with wild fish on the spawning grounds, and simply because it increases the total harvest, which is always a positive thing if you're in harvest management.

My own analysis is that since the treaty tribal fishery is largely commercial, the state law requiring deference to commercial fishing is more than complied with because the tribes catch 86% of the chinook harvest as it is. The LCR gillnet fishery is an anachronism whose time should be past so that as many of the allowable harvest of chinook as possible are taken by the highest and best use fishery, which is recreational fishing.

(Just saw Curt's post. Those additional commercial chinook harvest can come only from the sport fishery. Note in my example, which uses some generally observable numbers, that the additional commercial harvest is just slightly larger than the entire LCR sport catch. How'dya' like them apples?)

Sg