One of the strategic blunders of the WDFW-style of escapement-based management really hinges on the agency's insistence on clinging to a point-escapement goal. If they don't make it, it's a management failure. If they exceed it, even by just a couple hundred fish, it's a management failure.

They are literally setting themselves up for mission impossible.

And given the likelihood of failure in that scenario, they're much MORE prone to err on the side of OVERharvest than they are to err on the side of underharvest. Hey if we're gonna fail anyway, may as well fill those totes to overflowing along the way, eh?

Look, the agency goes to the allocation table at NOF believing it's armed with tools and models honed to surgical precision.... that they can somehow harvest down to the last fish... or in some cases down to the fraction of a fish when harvesting over ESA-listed stocks. What they got ain't any better than a butter knife.

So what's the alternative?

How about a target escapement range... what managers in Alaska refer to as a BEG or biologic escapement goal. This objective reflects the range of escapements most likely to produce MSY thru the ebb and flow of spawning/rearing conditions in the freshwater habitat as well as the oft-cited "ocean conditions" in the marine habitat. Neither is static.... and therefore neither should be the escapement goal.

From a more pragmatic perspective, an escapement range gives the agency, with its rudimentary tools of butter knife precision, a broader management target to successfully achieve.

There could be less emphasis on spending down the last fish. Let's say they let a few extra get by... no harm no foul as long as it's within the BEG range.