If truly selective gear can be used to decrease the mortality rates on wild fish then why would we not limit the fisheries based on hatchery quota?

**We have to remember...WDFW and commercial fishing interests are in the business of harvesting fish for the market, not recovering fish. Read every single press release from WDFW regarding what is happening on the LCR right now, they come right out and say that the point is to increase commercial harvest of hatchery fish...period. They're not even pretending otherwise...they don't need to, they somehow have hoodwinked enough sporties into doing it for them.**

Is it possible that less wild fish would die in the process of reaching the quota using the selctive gear?

**If the quota is 2% of the ESA listed fish, then it's 2%, no matter how they die...the quota is set by the amount of ESA fish killed, not by the amount of hatchery fish caught.**

Or are you saying that more encounters with non-target species using the selective gear will just offset any decreased mortality rate benefits?

**Not necessarily, I was just giving an example of how reduced release mortalities may not result in any less dead released fish.**

Do purse seines really capture more fish than a gillnet strung across a river?

**Per set? Maybe, maybe not...probably not...but that's not the relevant question, much less a relevant answer. Over the course of prosecuting the fishery, the entire point is to make the answer to that question an emphatic yes by taking longer to kill your share of the ESA fish and capturing more hatchery fish while doing so.**

Why is it not possible to use some sort of combination of the two policies?

**Sure, but the political and legislative hurdles are almost too large to even contemplate.**

Catch your quota and you're done and kill the alotted amount if wild fish and you're done?

**That certainly wouldn't help wild fish much**

Fish on...

Todd