In this period where escapement has not been met in three of the last five years, the 5% exploitation cap is in play. The controlling statement in the GH Management Plan actually says"
"Areas 2A, 2B, 2D: the impact rate of the state-managed commercial fishery shall be 0.8% on natural-origin Chehalis fall Chinook when the impact of the recreational fishery is equal to or greater than 4.2%. The impact rate of the WDFW-managed commercial fishery may be less than 0.8% when conservation concerns for natural-origin Chehalis fall Chinook result in a less than 4.2% impact rate in the recreational fishery."
It is clear that the Commission intended that the recreational fisherman would have priority on chinook impacts which in this case amounts to at least 84% of the impact (4.2%/5.0%). Last year the department went to a lot of effort to make sure the NT nets got 0.8% of the harvest in 2A/2B/2D but did not even compute or consider what the recreational harvest impact would be. The 2014 plan actually expected the recreational harvest in 2A/2B/2D would be 2.2%. I would suggest that this allows a net impact of 0.42% rather than the 0.8% that everyone assumes is the target.
The limiting factor in 2A/2B/2D is the ability of the recreational sector to generate enough impacts on natural origin chinook. In order to raise the share for the nets the thing the department should be working for is ways to increase the recreational harvest in 2A/2B/2C! With about 1% of the impacts allocated to the up river fishermen and about 0.4% to area 2C, there is only about 3.6% left to be split between commercial and recreational. I would suggest this should be 3% recreational and .6% commercial if we can get the recreational impact up to that level.