Boater,

It will be intellectually honest to agree and admit there are two issues here: conservation and allocation.

Banning gillnets and substituting selective fishing gear contributes to conservation by nearly eliminating bycatch mortality. That is a good thing. Even though most of us know and understand it doesn't increase the conservation of wild spring chinook.

Allocation is the honest approach to the issue does indeed come down to "us" versus "them." We will need to admit and advertise that the belief that we can "have it all," that is, have enough salmon for all, commercial and recreational fishing, is dilusional. It will never happen, and all the objective evidence points that direction.

There are several ways to accomplish this.
1. Designate spring chinook as a game fish, not a food fish.
2. Designate sturgeon as a game fish too.
3. Build enough of a war chest to modify the WA state law regarding commercial fishing, making it subordinate to recreational fishing when the economic benefits of recreational fishing exceed those of commercial fishing, acknowledge that treaty Indian commercial fishing satisfies the legislative requirement for commercial fishing.
4. Develop fish traps at Bonneville ladder, Willamette Falls, Cowlitz, Lewis, and Kalama to selectively remove excess hatchery fish AFTER the LCR recreational fishery, rather than before. Those excess hatchery fish could be used for the "highest and best" use, which may be for commercial food fish sale, or another alternative.

The upshot is that the best reason for getting the LCR commercial fleet off the river is the same as it's been for years now. It's an anachronism that has outlived it's usefulness to society. It's a government and ratepayer funded welfare program that benefits few and harms much. I cannot actually think of a good reason to retain it, which is why I've advocated eliminating it for the past decade.

Sg