To all: I think that the RCW is straight forward and easy to understand. It means just what it says. And I'm going to disagree with Salmo G. in that WDFW DOES have the ability to regulate/negotiate with the treaty tribes, but they haven't used it! Years ago in the aftermath of the Boldt Decision the courts established a Fisheries Advisory Board to mediate or arbitrate disagreements between WDFW (then the Department of Fisheries) on salmon and steelhead management conflicts. Conservation will always win in court. WDFW has never utilized that "tool" to hold the tribes feet to the fire when any of the individual tribes exceed what is their fair share of the steelhead catch. Look what is happening on the Queets, Hoh, etc., to the last vestiges of healthy wild runs. Many times the tribe there has nets in the river 5, 6, and 7 days per week! We anglers gave up our privilege to harvest (I did it gladly) in order to allow more wild steelhead to spawn. Our "share" must be allowed to go to the gravel! Who is/is not making sure that happens?

Those people are right when they say that the tribal netting on the PS rivers has been minimal the last decade. There's nothing left to fish for let alone spawn. And our brilliant WDFW plugged those rivers for 50 years with Chambers stock that was so inbred that it would take decades for that stock to re=establish through natural selection and evolution.

The tribes certainly must share the responsibility of conservation, but look what happened on the Columbia River for decades with non treaty netting. About ten years ago, WDFW authorized "Tangle Net" gillnet seasons for Spring Chinook. The nets that the biologists selected were coho size mesh!!! Did they intercept wild steelhead? Heck yes! About 21,000 steelhead were taken as bicatch AND TOSSED OVER THE SIDE DEAD. Don't WDFW biologists realize that coho and steelhead are close to the same size? Apparently not. And we have these same people entrusted with salmonid recovery?

For years WDFW and Oregon conducted gillnet fisheries in the Columbia during February, March and April. That's when wild winter steelhead migrate. The bad thing about gillnets is that they kill fish on both sides of the net. Those steelhead that survive spawning and are returning to the sea can also be taken on the upstream side.

Glad to see that Tacoma City Light has changed their fish run timing on the Cowlitz so that should any gillnet seasons occur on the Columbia downstream of the Cowlitz, that they'll intercept the peak of the new hatchery run in March.

As far as brood stocking goes, it doesn't have to be about harvest increases, but it has to be used to recover wild steelhead genes. For educational purposes, one of the reasons that OP rivers were left open to multiple wild fish harvest for so long, is that the primary fish manager for those streams liked to eat them! He told me so himself, and so did a Commissioner! I was incredulous! We should have mandated wild fish release years ago, but the F&W Commission was too slow or too stupid to react.

Has WDFW done a good job about doing something about seals, sea lions and bird predation? Heck no. Too politically volatile! Where in the statues does it say that they should keep their collective mouths shut if the politics are too hot?

Habitat? For example the Queets has enough steelhead spawning potential to support about 30,000 spawners. The Queets Band of the Quinaults says the escapement goal of 2,500 is enough. WDFW says it should be 3,500, if I remember right. Huh? The Hoh has failed to meet escapement goals for Steelhead how many of the last 10 years? Why is it still being fished so heavily? The Quillauete, which has been identified having the best steelhead habitat remaining in the state, had an average of only 8 spawning pairs per mile a few years ago! Is this really co-management? Who is advocating for us? No one when it comes to steelhead. They can't spawn if they're dead. They need to spawn, die and become river nutrients. It's a natural cycle.

Our over all fish habitat is in better condition now than it was years ago, yet we are failing to put spawners on the gravel. I realize that there is some mysterious affliction affecting Puget Sound steelhead the past couple decades, and that needs to be identified. I suspect part of the problem is with hungry seals and sea lions, along with the rare porpoise and orcas that are just trying to stay alive being a pinniped. When we cut back on steelhead hatchery plants, they've got to eat something between salmon runs.

If we can fix the harvest issue, jump start rebuilding wild steelhead populations with genetically appropriate hatchery supplementation, and eliminate much of predation we can get back on track to rebuilding steelhead runs instead of just watching them go down the drain.