Sky Guy,

No argument that fisheries data is "dirty." However, the issue is whether the data are clean enough to use in analyses that support management decisions. To that, I think the Skagit steelhead data are sufficiently adequate. Precision is not necessary. Reliable year to year index data that vary in response to harvest and environmental inputs are "good enough" to manage anadromous fish populations. The claim that anadromous fish populations are mis-managed using that data is debatable according to point of view and management objective. The interests favoring increased conservation tend to be disappointed, while the interests that favor maximum harvest think the data and models work as intended.

AP,

Yes, it's hard to tell when I'm being sarcastic. I should use a different font or learn how to insert those emoticons. I was being both sarcastic and serious in that post. Sarcastic about MPM being a genius and serious about neither recreational and treaty fishing not adversely affecting the Skagit steelhead population over the last 20, heck, let's make that 30 years. Obviously, every steelhead taken by incidental fishing mortality or direct intended harvest was an adverse outcome for those fish. But that is very different than effects on the population overall. For those mortalities to have adversely affected the population, they would have needed to result in lower subsequent productivity. That wasn't the case. Population size ranged up and down with freshwater productivity generally independent of escapement size, meaning enough steelhead spawned to produce enough juveniles to seed most of the productive rearing habitat. By all indications, the adult population size has been constrained by ocean survival, particularly early marine survival, when compared to coastal steelhead populations. There is no good evidence that adult run sizes would have been larger had more fish spawned in the parent generation. That's why I'm fairly confident in agreeing with NMFS official review that neither recreational nor treaty harvest has adversely affected the wild steelhead population.

MPM,

Although you think it's reasonable to believe that CNR seasons might have an affect, I'm curious how that could be when the fisheries agencies have determined that actual harvests of steelhead haven't adversely affected the population. In that context it's a pretty long stretch to conclude that CNR seasons have any measurable adverse affect, particularly an affect that might limit population or DPS survival and recovery in ESA terms.

Sg