Shut down fishing and see what happens? Isn't that exactly what we did with wild steelhead?
So what do you think happened?
Nothing, that's what, in spite of over 25 years of no retention and no commerical harvest, no ESA listed steelhead stock has been delisted.
So why in the world would we try that failed recovery option again? [/quote]


You have the policy wrong, but your not in Puget Sound. Tribes harvest steelhead. Bycatch in non tribal in the ocean with silvers? C&R of wild steel was promoted on fishing shows and in the magazines, in the 90's. Then you have everyone trying to get a picture of one for the scrap book and the bulletin board in the tackle shop. People that dont know how to handle a wild fish and guys who use lousy gear that breaks of or run up to the head waters of the green in the summer with a 12 foot noodle rod, before anyone knew what a noodle rod was and spend the day hooking fish on 4 and 2 pound test leader.

Keith, 6-8 years? They are not magically going to get around the tribal nets, or get past the recreational fishery down stream of the tribs. 6-8 years is barely two generations of the initial brood stock in the closure experiment.

SG?
How much spawning goes on below the dams? How effective is it with mass fluctuations in water level? If the wild fish are not spawning down below on the lewis and cowlitz, then how are the hatchery fish jeopardizing anything? All we see right now is large blanket of hatchery reduction in rivers that, may yield no increases. I dont know what the spawning activity is in the NFL below the dams, but since the collectors are $50-100 million and they are working on the first one, its going to be a long time before that experiment is going to yield results, since there are three dams. I do not know what collection facilities are in use now.

The steelhead mgt plans being developed? (which may have openings) Should be focusing on rivers without dams, which have the best chance of success, in the shortest period of time. The cowlitz in particular doesnt have good collection and all the good spawning water above the dams is going to waste. We need designated hatchery rivers like the cowlitz in order to keep recreational fishing going, while some of the other rivers are managed in other ways.

We have plenty of plans in PS that need to be tweaked. The Green river plants are limited to Soos creek, shutting down perhaps 40 miles of river for hatchery steelhead. The sky gates will be left open and a couple rain events will help push them into the gates.

Whatever is done for recovery, it wont make any difference if the fish cannot get back to use it.