Francis,

We might agree that the gillnet impact is greater than estimated on paper, but any alternative estimate is speculative. I know enough about commercial gillnetting to understand that the effects are greater than officially reported. But unreported information is part of every fish managmenet dataset baseline and accounted for therein. Therefore, asserting that significantly more wild chinook will reach spawning areas is speculative, particularly at the order of magnitude level. Consequently it is speculation that says this is a conservation argument. If that were objectively, rather than emotionally, clear, this part of the discussion would be so much easier.

A minor aside, and I'm not a springer angler of much experience, but it seems to me that the bite is more a factor of spring water temperature than whether the chinook is of hatchery or wild origin.

Sg