Refreshing news…

First off, let me say I was fully prepared to bag out on the GH public meeting tonight, fearing it would just devolve into another 2-3 hour food fight over who gets to kill what and how many. Just didn't want to spend another worthless evening arguing over who gets to kill the last fish.

So pleased to report that when RW turned to the topic of narrowing the grand canyon between the desired rec vs comm allocations, those in attendance entirely abandoned any discussion along those lines. Folks basically decided they were NOT gonna waste any more time talking about it... pointless as neither side is prepared to budge.

So what did happen?

One of the rec advisors gave an impassioned speech about past management failures, ridiculous arguments over who catches the last fish, and the urgency to abandon the past for a paradigm shift in managing these runs for the future.

The conversation shifted to conservation and escapement… specifically the chronic under escapement of wild fish in the basin.

We talked about escapement goals… habitat-based (river miles available for seeding) vs biologically-based (spawner-recruit ratios) ways of determining them… the merits of using escapement ranges to reflect the diversity of escapements that can produce optimal yields rather than clinging to archaic point-escapement goal management that all too often results in gross overharvest and failure to meet conservation objectives.

We talked about ensuring escapement windows with a minimum of 3 consecutive days per week of escapement past the estuary to deliver fish inland… and capping commercial fishing effort to no more than 4 consecutive days per week. And dedicating that available commercial time to ALL commercial fishermen regardless of skin color… finally taking the literal interpretation of "fishing in common with" to mean the state and tribe shall conduct concurrent fishing periods, KUM BA YA.

We talked about maximizing economic value from a limited precious natural resource.

These are the talking points that will resonate with the commission, folks. Fighting over 90:10, 80:20, 60:40 just makes each camp sound like a bunch of greedy bass turds. The conversation MUST be about the health of the resource and finding better ways to limit exploitation to consistently deliver enough fish inland to meet biological spawning escapement goals.

The conversation has finally shifted folks. Help us carry that message to Olympia. The commissioners need to be educated that these are the primary considerations upon which the allocation decision will ultimately fall. That allocative responsibility is not ours, nor is it the gill netters… that's something the commission has to own.