Through hard work by many in organizations at the federal level, just ignoring state for the time being, congress has passed many laws for the benefit of not just the commercials but recreational sport fishing industry as well.

It is an arena where commercials reigned and the tide is changing.

In the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act of 2006, the act itself is to provide for the conservation and management of the fisheries while calling for the best scientific information available to manage U.S. commercial and recreational fisheries. NOAA tasked by Congress to prevent overfishing and promote management strategies just to name a few, is why so much information pertaining to fish data (A-Z) is available on the NOAA web site regarding both industries.

Recent case law and CFR’s have begun to refer to sport anglers as an industry and rightly so considering the 100’s of billions of dollars generated each year by salt and fresh water anglers in the United States.

NOAA seems to be in a difficult situation with the ESA listed salmon in the PNW. When NOAA puts a particular salmon stock on an ESA listing, they are required to create a management plan to restore that stock.

It is easy to understand the need for the viability of commercial fisheries, especially the ground fisheries among others supplying food for world consumption but the extra level of an ocean commercial salmon fishery just is not necessary. The Washington coast fleet is a mere fraction of what it used to be because of less salmon enacting government subsidies--buyouts. The same salmon caught in the ocean would be caught at their individual terminal area anyway still going to market as usual. The end result would be larger salmon than ocean caught feeding salmon equaling less waste and more bang for the buck from hatchery salmon $$, less fuel, and less fishing over the ESA mixed stocks in the ocean for better management.