WHEW!!!!!Quite a mouthful Salmo. Sorry fellas, was out of town on business for a couple days. Well, since Salmo started the subject, and said by all means lets be completely biased, I can probably muster up a response, or two. The beginning of your letter is excellent, differentiating between natural and human caused mortality, etc.. Then, (Here we go!)we get into the smolts crossing dams. 'This eight dam complex imposes an estimated juvenile fish mortality ranging from 50 to 80% according to scientific reports.' Well Salmo, there are also 'scientific reports' stating juvenile fish losses to downstream migration through all 8 dams is only 12%. Guess it all depends on which "facts" you look at, huh? O.K., oh yeah, here is the Grande Ronde again. You simply explain it away by saying its returns are due to 'a billion' smolts being released there every year. If you have ever been there and seen the hatchery, you know better. If I'm not mistaken, the smolt release there is less than 300,000 per year. If you want to see 'a billion' (actually, over 3 million per year) drive up to Dworshak on the Clearwater. Now that's a hatchery!!! What does the Clearwater have for fish? Ask someone who fishes there what 'a billion' smolts gets you. So, no, you still can't explain the Grande Ronde. Well, I can. It's called the size of the holes in a monofilament gill net. END OF STORY. The Hanford Reach still returns a healthy run because, 'the 4 lower Columbia River dams are about the limit...the fish populations can handle and still exist'.Puuuuuuck!!! Some fish-killing dams are OK, just not Snake River fish-killing dams. Stop right now, back up, and read what you have said. Dams are either bad, or good, not both(DUH). You say that 'lower Col. River coho are near extinction because the states have managed for hatchery harvest rates, in excess of 80 and 90%.' You think this is the only fishery they manage this way??? I finally get it. Blame overfishing for fish disappearing only if you can't somehow blame it on a dam first. ALL fisheries are managed this way, and that's where your precious Snake River fish go. After they have survived the journey down the river, swam around and grown for 3 or 4 more years, YOUR state allocates anywhere from 60-85% of the returning grown-ups to be harvested. Two or three times the fish you see returning where you live would be back, instantly. Neahhh, tear the dams down. 'Silt behind the Snake dams'. Can't argue with you here, because I don't have a clue what will happen. Could take 2 years to clean itself out, could take 20. Even the Corp agree that they don't know. 'Ladders over Hell's Canyon (i'm assuming you mean the dam) won't restore anadromous fish to the upper Snake.' Well, why the hell not? There are several scientists out there that agree going over fish ladders is much easier for returning adults than negotiating rapid after rapid in the 'natural' river. My point earlier about the Snake River complex of dams was simply that Idaho's got no room to talk about how dam's are managed for maximum fish returns. If this were baseball, Idaho is 0 for 500 with 500 strikeouts with about a dozen foulballs directly off of their forehead. How about Ironhead's point? Why is everyone crying for Snake River fish and not upriver Columbia fish? If 4 dams are OK(puke again), then don't the next 4 on the Columbia have to go, too?? Oh, that's right, the government doesn't want to tear those out yet. So they haven't told you that you want them out yet, either. 'There is no scientific evidence that says dam breaching will restore the fish.' You should have stopped your paragraph, and your letter after you typed this. But no, you still think we should bet 10 billion dollars on a single number at the roullete table because some stuffy old lady(NMFS) fresh off the bus from Boston tells us "it's the right thing to do". In your next paragraph you say instead of just banning fishing for a year, you want to ban all electrical production at the same time. Good thought, but if you do both at the same time, everyone will argue which ONE really caused the huge fish returns(and they would be huge). Also, there is only two ways for water to get by a dam 1.) Through the turbines, or 2.) Spilled over the top. The environmetalists, and a lot of your government, still swear spilling huge amounts of water is the way to go. The only problem is the nitrogen and huge amounts of dissolved oxygen created by water spilling. I have talked to the guys in the boats checking smolts below Ice Harbor during spill. IT KILLS FISH by the thousands. Gas bubble disease, check it out. I could go on and on, but I'm tired of tearing into a fellow fisherman who cares as much about the bottom line as I do, fish. Please Salmo, don't take it personally. However, if tearing out dams is the one thing left you think we haven't tried yet, you're wrong. Stop commercial net fishing. You don't have to stop the troll fisheries, they have the oppurtunity to be selective. Nets aren't. Plus, this gets rid of 'bycatch', perhaps the nastiest taste in anyone's mouth. Fish killed, accidentally, that have to be thrown overboard because they aren't what that season is open for. There are stories of 30,000 lbs. of Chinook being killed as bycatch so boats can reach there limit of 4,000 lbs. of sockeye. How does that make sense? Stop, or curtail the Indian fishery. When the treaties of 1855 were written and signed, no one knew of monofilament, or Alumaweld, or electric net winches, or anything else that pertained to Indian fishing as we know it today. Stop at Cascade Locks or Columbia Point Marina in Tri-Cities next summer. You can buy ENDANGERED SNAKE RIVER CHINOOK FOR 2 BUCKS A POUND!!! And people came out by the hundreds !! That's how well informed they are, and how much they really care. As long as they can buy it, they will. As for me, I'm looking into windsurfing. Good luck!