T Dodge,

Foregone opportunity is a phrase coined by the U.S. v Washington court to allocate remaining harvestable surplus fish when those fish were not taken by the treaty or non-treaty party they had originally been allocated to. This was to prevent "wastage" in the event that a harvestable run was so large that a particular group, like non-treaty recreational anglers, could not take their 50% share of the court ordered allocation.

In the early 80s when this concept appeared, as I recall, it would have benefited treaty steelhead fishing, because in the case of some coastal fisheries, environmental conditions and the lack of a non-treaty net fishery prevent the non-treaty fishery from harvesting their 50%. Later on, it became apparent that their are certain treaty fisheries that would be disadvantaged by employing the foregone opportunity concept. Last I heard, it's kind of a stalemate that neither side wants to push for fear of taking a loss.

With respect to avoiding more liberal steelhead harvest regulations on the coast, there is an out. First, WDFW could opt out of MSH as its steelhead management policy, after going thru the proper procedures. Second, WDFW could declare an intent to probe steelhead productivity in those river systems by going wild fish C&R and managing for higher spawning escapements to see if productivity might actually be higher as a result of larger escapements. Seldom does fishery management suffer from too much good data from which to craft its management decisions, and this action would add to the data pool at little cost to the resource or to the recreational fishery since angling opportunity would be preserved, only recreational harvest would be reduced. There are other techniques that could be employed to avoid being undermined by the foregone opportunity scam, but this should serve as a start.

The upshot is that foregone opportunity is not a bonafide reason to shy away from wild steelhead C&R management.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.