No...
Just helping everyone else on the board to understand that as long as the tribes harvest CR upriver spring chinook NON-selectively, there is no getting around the fact that 75% of the hatchery fish will be left in the river.
It doesn't matter one iota that the NON-treaty gillnets become more selective. The number of fish harvested on the NON-treaty side CANNOT increase in any substantive measure because of catch-balancing.
The biggest constraint on recreational opportunity is NON-selective tribal fishing.
Most everyone doing the mathematical mental masturbation on this issue does so within the context of fishing for scraps.... a 2% sized pie. Think outside the box for just a moment folks. What if that NON-treaty pie were able to be enlarged by 2- or even 3-fold?
And no, I didn't just fill my self-prescribed supply of medical marijuana, folks.
Think about it? Why do the tribes get 87% of the ESA impact? To subsidize their NON-selective fishing strategy and still achieve catch balancing.
If they fished with even a modicum of selectivity, catch balancing could be achieved with fewer dead ESA springers than the ridiculous 15% impact allows. Probably enough to double or triple the impact allocation on the NON-treaty side, and actually put MORE wild ESA springers on the gravel.
Imagine how much NON-treaty harvest opportunity expands in an allocation scenario of 10% treaty, 4% NON-treaty, and 1% "bonus" for the gravel.
Hell if I'm gonna dream, may as well dream BIG..... 6% treaty, 6% NON-treaty, 3% "bonus" for the gravel!
Now there's a win-win-win!
How would you like the recreational impact share doubled or tripled? Bet that would buy a lot more days on the water, or perhaps even a 2-fish bag for at least part (all?) of the season?
The status quo leaves 3 out of every 4 hatchery fish unharvested.
If we can't harvest them, what's the point in making them in the first place?
Umm....don't know if anyone ever told you were wrong eyeFish, but you are wrong as to why the tribes get 87% of the ESA impact. History lesson: After US v OR came down and guaranteed them treaty rights to fish and then Boldt came down and guaranteed them a 50% share, but then Snake River falls got listed under ESA in the early 90's. The tribes said ESA didn't apply to them, as US v OR guaranteed them harvestable fish....and the states sued, guessing that Boldt caselaw would require the feds to split ESA sharing 50:50.....EHH!! Wrong!! The judge ruling on the case pulled the litigants into his court and said he was going to decide in this order of priority:
1. Conservation
2. Tribal ceremonial & subsistence
3. Tribal commercial
4. Nontribal fisheries
Or the parties could work out an impact sharing agreement themselves. So based on this the States went into a room and negotiated the sharing impacts with the tribes. Hence the current rate of 2% we get as that's what we negotiated. The case was never ruled on, as you can see the judge was going to give the tribes essentially preference for ALL of the ESA impacts, and they wouldn't technically have to let us have any ESA impacts as they were both #2 and #3 priority.
We get 2% simply because the tribes LET US HAVE some. Furthermore the essence of what is known as Boldt II.....we f'd up the habitat and so our ESA impacts are used through habitat destruction and so we're off the water. We don't sit on a very justified position of bargaining for anything, especially additional ESA impacts. Just part of your CR springer 101.
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