Originally Posted By: Carcassman
The "Habitat is the only problem" mantra is that if we improve the freshwater productivity we don't need to change fishing. If the current R/S is (say) 1.1 and the habitat fix takes it to 1.2 you can double your catch for the same escapement.

Right now, as bad as the habitat is supposed to be, most of the salmon runs are having R/S's greater than 1. We just catch them, excess seals eat them, etc.

We are conducting a different sort of experiment with salmon as opposed to other ESA species. We are trying to harvest our way to recovery. It is more complex than that, but politically there is no will to shut down all the impacting fisheries.


I believe I heard folks testifying to recruitment rates of somewhere around the 0.6 range... HORRIBLE! 25% worse than the scenario I painted 10 years ago with 0.8 recruitment.

10 spawn... 6 come back. Never gonna make up that deficit on volume alone.... no matter how many we get back to the gravel.
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"Let every angler who loves to fish think what it would mean to him to find the fish were gone." (Zane Grey)

"If you don't kill them, they will spawn." (Carcassman)


The Keen Eye MD
Long Live the Kings!