Originally Posted By: eyeFISH
I believe the key element of the GH Plan is the specific language that states "without reducing the recreational fishery".

The rationale here is that at low adundance, maximum benefit to society is derived by granting a harvest priority to the recreational fishery. The economic engine simply runs a lot harder when fueled by sport-caught fish. Why would policymakers squander the maximum value of an extremely limited resource by harvesting those few fish commercially?

However, at higher levels of abundance, there are simply more fish available than could EVER be possibly harvested in the recreational fishery. Once the maximum economic benefit has been realized from a fully liberalized sportfishery, additional value can be extracted from the resource by harvesting the remaining surplus commercially.

The key will be determining the run-size threshold (basin by basin) where that shift in allocation priority should begin to take place.

Ask yourself this.... would I even care how many the commercials took as long as biologic escapement needs were being met and sufficient fish were present to fuel a robust sport fishery?



I don't think there would much of any resistance if we were talking about commercial harvest at the dam and falls, the controversy is over being low holed by the commercial fleet for the entire season.