Sorry I am a bit late in jumping in here; just back into town.

When the non-tribal commercial season was first announced during the last week of Sept. the 1 October opener did not include MA 2E which remained closed pending negotiations with the tribe(s) to increase the total allowable harvest (as specifically stated in the official posting).

Now I read that the non-tribal commercial season in 2E is closing on 15 October. (http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/commercial/crab/pugetsound/) That seems to imply that those negotiations were successful.

So the question in my mind is how much did WDFW agree to boost the total harvest (tribal plus State) in 2E to provide enough head room for there to be a non-tribal commercial opener in that area?

And does that action meet the often stated (Childers, Anderson, et al) approach for this first year's (new policy) season setting to be done conservatively? At face value I can't see them meeting that test at least in 2E.

And for the other areas we should be asking the Commission how WDFW was able in late Sept to announce commercial openers for 1 Oct when the recreational harvest had not been tabulated and the winter recreational season put off until 8 Oct on the pretext of needing the summer harvest data. This simply does not pass the whiff test.