Wasn't sure if airing all of the details on a public board at this time would be in the best interest of the sport camp, but hey, there it is.

I'll limit my comments to those that are consistent with the Tier Plan and hopefully bring some reassurances to the table about just what is and is NOT possible under the Plan.

First off, the Tiers are well defined for each stock in each sub-basin.

Chehalis chinook... Tier 3, allocation heavily weighted in favor of recs. After the Chehalis tribal set-aside of 581 fish, the magic number here is 2935 available wild kings for rec and comm.

Chehalis coho... Tier 4, fully liberalized rec fishery, but with provisions to allocate more heavily toward commercial. There's basically more fish coming than we can catch.

Hump chinook... Tier 4, fully liberalized rec fishery with a robust comm fishery in 2-C

Hump coho... Tier 4, fully liberalized rec fishery with a robust comm fishery in 2-C

Chum.... effectively "Tier 1".... non-treaty impact cap at 5% of total run-size forecast divvied between us, comm, and Chehalis tribe in BOTH river systems. At a run-size of 21603, we're talking about 1080 dead fish, folks.

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I'll make my comments for the Hump short and sweet. There are easily enough fish available to fuel the exact same season we had last year except that WILD coho will be available for harvest, so expect AT LEAST one wild coho in the bag. Count on it.

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Let's move on to Chehalis.

A chinook-directed rec fishery WILL commence in the bay no later than Sept 16. This includes area 2-C for those who want to give it a whirl. How long it lasts has yet to be determined. The fishing power of the fleet CANNOT be underestimated. The predicted harvest potential will be the prime determinant of how long king retention lasts in the bay. The other consideration is providing an element of parity with harvest opportunity in-river.

A fully liberalized coho-directed rec fishery will also commence in the bay no later than Sept 16. It will last as long as the fishable weather does... typically over and done with long before the official close of the season in most years.

A chinook-directed rec fishery WILL commence in the Chehalis mainstem on or before Oct 1. When and for how long has yet to be determined. This will be tweaked to provide an element of parity with harvest opportunity in the bay.

A coho-directed rec fishery WILL commence in the mainstem Chehalis on or before Oct 1. Exactly when has yet to be determined, but recall that we started on Sept 16 last year with a smaller run-size forecast. Consider that date a slam dunk for 2012.

THESE ARE GUARANTEED under the Tier Plan.... no ifs ands or buts. So if you are worried they aren't gonna happen, just chill.... they're gonna happen.

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So now lets look at that much dreaded 2A/2D gillnet fishery. First off, realize the tribe WILL assert far more days than they did last year. Don't even bother pissin' about it.... ain't nothin' we can do. So just leave those comments at the door.

Non-treaty intends to pursue the maximum days they can get. What's been proposed in the schedule above is intended to harvest 40K coho, but trust me, it was conceived in fantasy-land. It just ain't gonna happen. How many days they actually get is entirely dependent on WDFW's harvest model and what it spits out for predicted chinook and chum impact. Mark my words. Dead Chehalis-origin chinook and dead chum will be the sole determinants of how many coho-directed days the netters will ultimately be allocated in 2A/2D.

The gillnetters do NOT want to take any wild Chehalis kings outright. They'll expend whatever is available to them as release mortality "impact" to achieve the maximum coho-directed days in the first half of their season. So what's really available to them? Well here's the math, folks.

Non-treaty wild chinook harvestable = 3516
Set aside for chinook produced above the Chehalis rez = 581
That leaves 2935 wild kings to feed marine rec, in-river rec, Chehalis-origin fish harvested in the 2-C gillnets, and finally release impacts from the 2A/2D gillnets.

From recent experience, when chinook retention is allowed, we know that the bay fishery is easily capable of taking about 1500 kings between Sept 16-30 (2004 season). It is also capable of taking about 1100 kings between Oct 1-15 (2006 season). The Plan mandates that fishing begins on Sept 16, so let's just use the 1500 number as a rough example. The Plan guides us to provide equal freshwater opportunity, so let's craft an in-river fishery to take at least another 1500 kings. The 2-C net fishery took over 1800 kings last year. It's estimated that perhaps 30-40% of that catch is Chehalis origin....let's call it an even one-third at 600 dead Chehalis kings.

1500 + 1500 + 600 = 3600 dead kings. What's left for 2A/2D impact? A deficit of 600+ chinook! There are no paper fish left to fuel the early season netting in 2A/2D! Now I put this out there to give folks a rough idea of how the numbers shake out. Are these written in stone? Nope.... but they're a lot closer to reality than the gillnet proposal above.

Now let's look at chum.

Chum will die as gillnet release mortalities in 2C as well as 2A/2D. They will die as release mortalities from in-river rec fisheries directed at chinook and coho in the Hump and Chehalis/tribs. They will also die as in-river harvest by the Chehalis tribe. The tribal piece is essentially a fixed set-aside. Add to that the rec piece which will also be a fixed number (based on a fully liberalized in-river season for coho) . Now add in the chum that will die as release mortalities in 2-C. Subtract that total from 1080 and you have the chum impacts available to allocate days in the second half of the coho gillnet season. Can't wait to see what the model spits out.