Two Dogs

Selective fisheries are just an example of the tools available to managers to access abundance stocks while limiting impacts on other stocks of concern. Mark selective recreational fisheries are an example of selective fisheries that many folks are familiar with (Used extensive with steelhead through out the state and in the PS area for more than 30 years - and I would argue successfully). Other examples of selective fisheries include the use of tangle nets and even dip nets (used at times to access high value fish such as spring Chinook). Another major and successful selective fishery that you are familiar with would be the Tulalip bubble Chinook fisheries. In every case the goal of those selective fisheries is to benefit the users while limiting impacts on other critical stocks; I suppose whether those fishery are good or bad often depends on whether you are the user that benefits.

I agree that paying attention to the "numbers" is important and should be a high priority. And this proposal does exactly that. It calls for an examination of the decade of information collected in the intensive monitored mark selective fisheries (significant effort, biological information, code wires collected, etc.) that should provide a much better understanding how well those selective fisheries has worked . I suggest that folks take that information, the result of the new FRAM model to examine the recreational fisheries to see it tweaks to the recreational season structures to assure that the recreational fisheries are taking full advantage of the benefits of the mark selective approach without jeopardizing other conservation (wild and hatchery) concerns.

I'm glad you mentioned the habitat need to restoring the wild stocks. The natural advocates for wild fish are the fishers (whether tribal or non-treaty) however to date those users have much more concerned about arguing over how the fish pie is divided rather than increasing the size of the pie. If those users can not move pass allocation arguments both the future of the wild fish and fishing in general is doomed.

Curt