In response to Kerry ... to each his own on what it used for. Most of my Snider's go back, so I see it as supplementation to spawn. No one from state or tribe has been able to help us determine how many early spawners may have increased since they never counted anything until March 1 for so many years ... and my gut feeling is now they (tribe) are only doing so the last few years to bump numbers up when we fell below goals for the system (Duc was still above). So, I'm basing my efforts on what I am seeing for wild returns in that timeframe vs. other streams in the system. Right, wrong ... we don't know for sure ... but from what I see swimming up the river each day, there's far more wild fish here now than there was at the inception of the program in the same timeframe. In the early days, it was often a struggle to get enough late Dec. / Jan fish as they had already been pretty much wiped out. Now, it's generally pretty easy as long as we don't sit idle for three weeks lookign at brown water. Immeasurable I know ... but it's what I see, it's what others have seen.

For others, it's harvest op in this timeframe. Good for town, good for giving an option to those who are gonna kill something anyhow. Todd is smokin' something pretty strong if he honestly thinks there won't be more poaching of unclipped fish without these fish around ... it's sad, but it's a reality and should be considered. It's NOT a black and white issue ... there's a lot that needed to be considered here and for peeps that don't fish here daily, all they can do is look on paper, and that's pretty friggin' sad in my book.

As for the pressure, there's one thing you're completely missing Kerry. Hundreds of Bogchiel brats enter the 'Duc every year ... you've caught them, I know. Now, if we all move to a different river early on, the effort that currently culls the majority of these fish may be elsewhere ... and the WS gene bank idea is far worse off having hundreds of Chambers fish in the system rather than escaping or released Sniders. Which scenario is worse for the wild Sol Duc fish. You know you can't eliminate the Bogey brats, the tribe would never let it happen ... so within the real world scenario, what is best???