After more thought, the 2018 Grays Harbor season looks like it will be the poster child for selective fishing. We pretend that the released fish in the bay have a mortality of 14% for poles and 56% for nets but I think we all know it is greater than that even without considering the impact of seals and sea lions. Releasing a fish anywhere in tidewater probably adds another 50% mortality due to pinniped harvest. Frankly none of the non-tribal harvest in tide water is actually selective under the present conditions.

With equal wild and hatchery coho run sizes and a one-and-done fishery we will have access to 2,747 wild and 2,747 hatchery coho for the entire non-tribal harvest. Most of the 16,318 available non-tribal hatchery coho would go unharvested. In addition most of the harvestable chum will be unavailable for harvest.

If the goal was to achieve the maximum possible harvest of the available coho, the season would be very different than anything we have ever seen. I suggest the non-tribal fishery would look something like this: There would be no harvest by anyone in the bay or in Chehalis tidewater. Tributaries with hatcheries, such as the Satsop, would have a season with hatchery only retention. The release mortality of 10% would allow access to the entire non-tribal share of the available 16,300 hatchery fish. This would be unacceptable to the commercial fishers who would want to take half of the available wild coho (1,373 fish) in the bay along with an equal number of hatchery coho. If the sport fishers were allocated half the wild coho mortality it would still allow a Satsop harvest of 13,730 hatchery fish, nearly all the non-tribal share.

The advisors are a creative group and I sincerely hope that they can craft something better than what I outlined above.