OncyT,

There is no NMFS approved PS steelhead harvest management plan. There is the co-managers draft plan of 2010, but it was sent back as deficient or insufficient. Allowable incidental take is too high is what I was told. Not sure if it is too high across the board, or too high for some stocks and OK for others or what. I hate it when a regulator says, "wrong rock; bring me a different rock" without describing the parameters of the correct rock.

I presume an acceptable HMP would include lower allowable take limits for the southern-most PS stocks, like NIsqually and Puyallup, where runsizes have numbered in the low hundreds and those stocks suffer the highest apparent mortality rate when migrating out of PS. Then higher take limits would be acceptable for north Sound stocks that number in the thousands of adult fish and apparent smolt mortality rates during out-migration is much lower.

One reason I hear is that salmon management takes so much time, and (treaty) steelhead fishing is a so much lower priority, that little time or resources have been available to work on the steelhead plan.

Sg