RUNnGUN asked: "which brings up a question. Why have their not been RMP's on the South Sound rivers like the Nisqually, Puyallup and Green?"

And a good question it is. First, I'd say that steelhead RMPs at best, are a distant blip on the WDFW radar. Compared to all the fish management stuff the agency is required by law to do every year, steelhead are like an annoying fly in the oinment. The fisheries are small in total, not much money is involved, so no large lobbying efforts are made. We're talking about pocket change that's lost in the lint in a deep corner of the pocket. That's a lot of words to say that it is a very low priority.

Second, unlike the Skagit, where even the low returns have been near or not much lower than the spawning escapement guideline, steelhead returns to south sound rivers have been far below escapement goals, except for 2015 and 2016. It's harder to justify the time and resources necessary to develop RMPs for river systems when run forecasts suggest that there are not enough fish to support a fishing season most year. I was probably overly optimistic about the Nisqually. It did look promising those two years, and I haven't sought the escapement estimates for '17 and '18. I think we need a basin by basin deep dive spawner-recruit analysis to see what the future for PS steelhead fishing might look like.