If I ever make it over this year, it will be my 29th year in a row. In that time I've seen a lot and learned a lot.
This is not the 1st time this happened. In late 80's into the 90's the King run was strong. One thing I learned, is when the fish are ready to enter the river they can do it in mass if the run is there. Once they enter the lower river the Kings hold and can stack up. A number of times in those years I left on a Sunday evening, knowing 100's if not 1,000's of fish were there and would be gone within 2 days. In the years to follow, I had this discussion numerous times with people who had witnessed it.

Then the run crashed. I'm sure mother nature had a hand in it but netting the crap out of them year after year and having the Sportsmen keeping a limit of Kings took it's toll . Yes, add up all the guides, sportsmen etc keeping 2 Kings a piece and we contributed.

So the run tanked for years. I could give more examples of why I feel that way but as many of you know, a lot of guides and fishermen have been releasing Kings there for years because we know what happened.

So finally the King #'s have been rebounding. When I go to North of Falcon I always look at the #'s. 2017 had a prediction of 6,433 fish. I'm pretty sure that's the biggest # in years. So the run may be rebounding.

Then in Sept, Oct the tribe is netting, they did cut back days but that doesn't matter if the fish enter the river in a big push and large #'s as happened. They don't need a lot of time when there nets stretch across a good portion of the river, they drive the fish into nets with boats and poles and they drift net. You can take a lot of fish fast. And it sounds like they did.

So in the end, the Kings have paid the ultimate price and we have paid the price for what the tribe did.

The long term question is; How can everyone make sure this does not happen again. That history does not repeat itself. Not sure how accurate this is and I plan on doing some investigating but I was told by someone reliable that I believe it would have been 2015, the tribe realized that they had taken more Kings then had made it to Spawning Beds. If that is accurate, that is twice in the last 3 years. Not good.

Things that need to be improved. WDFW & National Park working with the tribe to prevent this from happening again. The Park needs to beef up their enforcement. They went to Release All Wild Fish back in I believe 2015. But they did a poor job of enforcing it. Snagging in Low Water, Keeping Wild Fish, Keeping Over Limit etc has been common for years. It needs to stop. Some things I have witnessed in one of our National Parks has been disgusting.

I hope I wasn't to long on this but I'm passionate about the system.