What I would like to see, is next years allocations being adjusted to make up for any imbalance in the numbers if the tribe took more than the allocated amount this year. Every time the reverse happens, the state takes actions to reimburse the tribes.

Part of the original Boldt Decision was Equitable Adjustment(EA) for salmon (only). It includes all harvests in WA managed water. I was involved in few pay-back situations.

Before you get to EA you might run into foregone opportunity; a situations where one could have fished but chose not to.

But, the Co-managers can agree to whatever they want. Just saying that the court decisions, and this went to the Supremes twice, is still out there.

It is out there, but only seems to be applied to one side. I realize that small imbalances are to be expected, but where one side takes ignores the numbers, some sort of effort has to be taken or it becomes a precedent. I have not idea what has happened in this case, but I do not think forgone opportunity can be argued if the fish would have eventually be available for harvest but were taken before that could happen.

What a bummer. Looking to me like we may have lost the Queets drainage for good.

WDFW should be made to explain how it (now) deals with EA and why it is not being pursued. I recall Phil A, before becoming director, noted that steelhead were left on the table on one Coastal River because "We got the fishery we wanted." Never explained who "we" was to sporties who asked why they couldn't go fishing for them. So, there are reasons but the folks who pay the freight deserve to know them.

A small example of not pursuing is the Crabs in area 11. In 2020, the sports side fell short on their quota by around 9262 while the tribes took a little over 500 more than their quota. ("The final non-tribal crab landings for MA 11 were 28,248 pounds and the tribes harvested approximately 38,062 pounds." The initial quota was 37500 per side) There was talk of opening for a holiday season, but it never happened. From what I can tell is that the state did a census and found that the crabs simply were not there in numbers to allow an opening. So, what happened then next year, well, we got the same 50/50 split with the tribe, with no adjustments. At worst, they should at least had a reduction of the Approx 500, and for equity the state should have gotten at least a percentage of the 9200 sent our way. but the usual seasons were taken.

I know EA is/was applicable to salmon, not to steelhead, and have no idea about shellfish or rockfish.