It's really sad how the user groups at the bottom of the salmon fishing totem pole (the sporties and the Tribes) relegate ourselves to trying to claim each other is somehow more responsible for salmon decline. The real culprits (ocean fisheries) take a majority of the salmon both the Tribes and WA sporties should be fishing for in terminal areas. Instead of poking each other in the eye (and all ending up looking like whiny, greedy fools), we should be joining forces to affect change in open ocean quotas.

The best sign that the way things are being done now is wrong (aside from the continuing decline in salmon stocks, of course) is that the Tribes, who probably get low-holed the worst, all things considered, allow the madness to continue, because higher ocean quotas justify tribal fisheries (Hoh v. Baldridge) that otherwise would not be allowed under conservation guidelines. Using irresponsible management practices to justify others creates maximum economic benefit from the resource, leaving less than minimal consideration to conservation. That's how we got here, and as long as people getting paid continues to drive management policy, we'll only see it get steadily worse. Fortunately, we can just blame the habitat, which makes everyone feel better when looking in the mirror.