Interesting you chose #1 as I put it out there as more of a tongue in cheek kind of thing.

My most often-repeated assertion at the advisory/NOF meetings when stumping for the rec camp:

"For a sporty, opportunity starts with a bite. Only a SMALL percentage of the fish bite, so rec opportunity hinges heavily on real-time abundance and getting first crack at potential biters. The more fish that see the gear, the greater the likelihood of eventually running into a biter that snaps at the gear"

So in essence, for the rec fleet to catch a record chinook harvest, there had to be a zhit-pile of kings available to see the gear, most of them NON-biters, but obviously a pool of suicidal biters as well. The opportunity was clearly there. The fact that the same limited pool of biters might have to be shared among many more boats is another matter altogether.

Biters are biters, and non-biters ain't. Only so many fish will bite on a given day. Once a critical mass of boats is on the water, they WILL catch all the biters for the day. The effect of further doubling or tripling the effort will NOT be proportional to the total catch at the end of the day.

That's the unique thing about a combat rec fishery. Whether there's 200 vs 400 vs 600 boats plying the water on any given day, essentially the same fixed number of biters will die that day.

That's where it gets a bit competitive, where only the cleanest presentations among those hundreds of boats are consistently gonna get bit.