Just got off the phone with Curt Kraemer (sp?) himself, and the word is that there will be no March/April season in 2001 on the Snohomish or Stilly. Period. The decision has been made and it will be signed into law early next week. He also said that since there is no way to do an "in-season" assessment, there is no chance of a last minute opener. No word on the Skagit/Sauk system yet. According to Curt, the projected run size is based on low returns the last two years, and poor stream conditions for smolts on the returning 2 and 3 salt fish. I guess they're taking a "better safe than sorry" approach, which we should support, but it is a little hard to swallow after allowing a catch and kill policy through February the last couple years--when numbers were down. Their goal is 6500 fish in the Snohomish system, and last year they only had 2800. Of course, the run-size assessment could be flawed, but since it is the same year to year, relative to the target number, it was a lousy year. In our conversation, he explained how there survey works, and I can explain this in detail if anybody cares, but I won't go into it here. As somebody above asked, it does take into account run groupings and last year's late push. Man, am I bummed. On the positive side, he did seem to feel that if the run is better than expected, we will get this fishery back--just not this year. Still don't know what I will do with those extra 40 days I will now have in March and April.