The purpose in its most simplest context...

To gain control over natural abundance/God provided food supply... To manufacture scarcity via "management" as to deny food availability so the people cannot feed themselves outside of the system of governance...

The tools used are purposeful over harvest to create scarcity via commercial exploitation under the guise of global demand vs maintaining natural abundance via responsible subsistence harvest models... Responsible subsistence harvest,, without limits,, "only take what you need for food" without regulation would not even impact stock abundance and allow carrying capacity to rebuild to natural levels...

Take away the mindset of competition to get the most,, just be responsible and honest about it...

In no way has the corporate government displayed that they have the intention or knowledge to manage Natural Resource in a capacity to dictate to the people how it should be done in a honest or responsible way with good intentions for the environment or the people...

In no way has the corporate government shown that it is responsible,, honest or acting in Good Faith to do the right thing...

I'm up for a good conspiracy but I'm not sure this one jives. I feel that there are too many user groups, environmental issues and political issues that complicates the whole mess. There are plenty of people wanting more fish in the rivers. What that looks like and what may get implemented is often not agreed to by the many different groups that advocate for fish(see lawsuits).

I agree. There are too many people who want their share whether it be fishermen, folks who want to drink water, dam operators, and a whole long list of societal uses that tug.

Unfortunately, in my experience, the folks on the front lines can't truthfully and fully share the orders they march under. They get blamed, but they don't drive the bus.

Pretty sure many of them know what needs to be done, but can't even say it.

We need to be thinking outside the box for a real solution where everybody has an opportunity without an advantage and the fish and environment win also...

Commercial interests especially in the terminal areas and in the feeding grounds is contrary to natural abundance and not sustainable over the long or short term... Money is the problem,,, the fish are viewed as property for profit above national security and overall health and welfare of all sectors... We just have to stop nearly all commercial fishing for the purpose of profit... Anything do do with Salmon or Steelhead outside of gear/boats needs to be non profit and necessarily tax free... Participation in the resource,, from harvest to management must happened on a volunteer basis and Hatcheries production/wild production, overall maximum abundance must be the goal with maximum harvest opportunity/participation for the purpose of substance and recreation...

The people need to realize that the opportunity belongs to them at their discretion...

Not bad RG

RichG,

I doubt you realize it, but you do have a point as regards salmon. By WA state law, salmon are food fish, and the WDFW has organized itself around commercial fisheries intended to make salmon as food available to the people at large. Hence the nickname of the "Washington Department of Salmon." Overharvest began before the state had the mechanism to regulate salmon harvest. Then came poorly developed escapement goals to attempt to reign in overharvest. Then in 1984 the state and Boldt treaty tribes set in stone the management principle of Maximum Sustained Harvest (MSH), a slight variant of maximum sustained yield, a concept embraced by fishery managers nearly world wide. With one significant failing, because MSY and MSH are not actually sustainable. In every case I am aware of, they inevitably lead to a declining fish population trend that ends with the population no longer being abundant enough to make commercial pursuit worthwhile. In a nutshell, that's salmon management for you.

Steelhead are another matter. To the state steelhead are gamefish, to be managed to provide recreational fishing. To the treaty tribes steelhead are food fish, same as salmon. And whether they knew what they were doing or not, the state agreed with the tribes in 1984 to also manage steelhead under MSH. Except the state hasn't exactly done that, and most tribes haven't either, with some exceptions. The result is that steelhead have spawning escapement goals, and although far from perfect, are ecologically based and have the prospect of sustaining steelhead populations indefinitely. The steelhead problem is one of a changing environment, both in freshwater and especially in the marine and ocean environments.

Between reduced steelhead harvests through wild steelhead release regulations in the recreational sector and extremely reduced harvest in the treaty fishing sector, harvest is nearly out of the equation affecting wild steelhead abundance as a practical matter. Well, then, if steelhead are not being over harvested, then why aren't there more of them? Excellent question Poindexter. It's the environment that provides critical space and forage that is limiting their abundance. Climate change, you know, the one that's a hoax, is changing stream hydrographs, causing both winter flooding and summer drought to be both more frequent and more severe than they were during the decades of peak steelhead abundance. And the ocean, where steelhead attain most of their growth is out of whack as well. We get changes in spring coastal upwelling that produces critical forage for juvenile salmon and steelhead, increases in surface sea temperature in the far western Pacific where most steelhead forage, increases in competition in the far western Pacific Ocean from hatchery pink and chum salmon released in Japan and Alaska, and increased avian and marine mammal predation as their former prey species also decline in abundance. The take home message: the aquatic environment that is critically necessary to abundant steelhead populations is a mess.

Oh, and the WA state population of humans has increased from 2.6 million, when wild steelhead were last doing quite well to 7.8 million today, when they aren't.

And that, RichG, is why you can't fish without regulation and harvest steelhead for subsistence whenever you feel like it. This is how the world has evolved, along with the not so helping hand of mankind. Life's a bitch, and then you die.

Ewww.

And then we die, I guess that’s it then, and slammed the door on that thread.

Come on Rich, give us something to work with here.

To piggyback on Salmo's comment on MSH I find it to wholly an economic analysis. What is the absolute minimum investment I am forced to make (escapement) in order to maximize return (dead fish in the boat)? I even have a management plan that says this...

MSH/Y also only looks at one species and not at inter-species interactions. Alaska showed that as you increased pink escapement you significantly increased coho catch. Problem for them was that it was different groups of fishermen (trollers versus seiners) and neither wanted to cut back to help the other.

Here in WA, how many guys who fish the Big Blue, Puget Sound, or Bouy Zooey are willing to let those fish pass upstream for escapement and the local in-river fishermen? Management would be much more exact that way...

The way we continue to think about things and do things has gotten us in worse shape all the way around...

"User groups" being concerned about all these user groups who have an interest regarding "profits"... This is not the peoples interest regarding fish management,, we could give a [Bleeeeep!] about who is making money off the fish at the expense of the fish, the environment not to mention the peoples well being...

The fish belong to no one,, they are a privilege to everyone,, not a human right to have access,, you have to be responsible,, selfless and humble regarding this privilege... God created man to have dominion over the land, waters and the beasts,, this includes Salmon and Steelhead... Not to control but to responsibly maintain/look after...

God did not create money or give money to man so that he could [Bleeeeep!] up the world and all the beasts and fish because of greed for the fake money...

Salmo,,,

The environment has nothing to do with any of this,, there is nothing wrong with the environment regarding Steelhead survival or production... its likely slightly out of balance for the purpose of gaining control over it but not damaged or broken in any significant way...

The reason why there are not more steelhead is because of purposeful over harvest which continues in the terminal areas/feeding grounds on an already decimated stock that was over harvested even more in the past so that control over abundance could be gained...

The Indians did not do it initially,, they lived for thousands of years by the rule of subsistence,, "take only what you need",, it was a successful management model... Now the Indians are on the take/government/bank payroll so they are used as a tool of "management",, getting abundance under control by targeting stocks in terminal areas to manage the abundance into manufactured scarcity... The Indians are being used via giving them Greed for wealth and the unfair advantage of overharvest opportunity...

The recreation people do not have the opportunity to over harvest,, it is denied because they are under control as is the abundance of the resource...


You see,, the fish resource is in a position of scarcity because of management,, over harvest being used as a tool of control,, in the past and continuously to this day...


Once you decimate the wild production which is not human controlled yet human impacted you establish hatcheries to initially supplement the wild production loss,, then you ration the hatchery production to cause scarcity and blame it on the environment/human impact so you can impose restrictions and more control over the people,, also to deny them FOOD or the ability to feed themselves outside the banking cartel/centralized system of control...

The Dollar/Money is the tool of control/self destruction...

None of this is complicated,, all very simple... We complicate it to somewhat deflect the blame and to prevent having to undergo a change in perspective and actions...

The truth is the people like being under control/without responsibility,, able to cast blame "point fingers" so that there is no actual accountability,, no change to their existence...

If the people have to be responsible and accountable life becomes REAL,, that is what people are avoiding...

RichG posted: "The environment has nothing to do with any of this,, there is nothing wrong with the environment regarding Steelhead survival or production... its likely slightly out of balance for the purpose of gaining control over it but not damaged or broken in any significant way... "

It doesn't surprise me or any sane individual that you are detached from reality. To believe what you posted requires ignoring all the credible evidence that exists and corroborates what I posted. Your simplistic reality is a made up narrative that is not supported by any rational evidence. It may be comforting to you, but that doesn't make it real.

If you are around some place for a long time you miss the changes.

Worked with a Habitat Manager who insisted that the habitat in a rapidly urbanizing county had not degraded over his decades there. Yeah.

I moved away from Sacramento in '72, returning only for visits and holidays. In the early 00s my Dad and his wife drove to Folsom for dinner. On the way we passed a field that was packed with 10-20' tall oaks. It dawned on me that when I left, that was a grassy field. Yes had I driven past it daily for those 30 years I likely would not have detected the change.

Moved to Olympia in '80 and commted from Lacey to downtown daily. Those Doug-firs along I-5 haven't grown a bit in the 45 years I've been here.

You see something every day and don't notice the change.

Thought this site was defunked, being down for so long? Something I sure notice driving on back woods logging roads, is when an area is logged. Makes it difficult to identify where your'e located. Same after a logged area is replanted after 5-10 yrs.

Rich G.
Some very interesting comments from you the past few days. In many ways government is the problem. Either too much regulation, or none.
Looking back about a hundred years as our northwest population began to grow and we pursued development. Some leaders realized that development like dams, logging, building, etc., would affect our fish populations. So, they built hatcheries to compensate for the natural losses. It worked for awhile. Now we have extreme habitat loss (an Oregon State professor says we have less than five percent of original), but good ability to produce hatchery salmon, but are prohibited to taking an abundance due to the complexities of ESA. The government's promises are broken. Think about our restrictions to reducing seals and sea lions. Same with over populated predatory birds (government built ideal habitat for them on the Columbia). There's a permit to eliminate a substantial number of sea lions just downstream of Bonneville, but only a small portion of the quota has been taken. And last, but certainly not the least, think of the plight of the treaty tribes. Pretty much we're all in the same boat now.

I remember deer hunting with a guy who said one of his mentors "hunted deer all year and bucks in the fall". Pretty sure, like Tiug said, that have been and probably still are rather subsistence consuming. probably worked on very small scale but now, with all the people, the resource loses.

Yes the Treaty Tribes got phucked but remember they are a conquered peoples...

Now the Treaty tribes are being used by the banking cartel to maintain a system of manufactured scarcity in order to maintain control over Gods created abundance so that the people remain in a controlled state where their food supply is rationed and controlled for the interests of commercial entitlements...

What better way to control individual stocks for the purpose of controlling regional food supply and being able to use other tools of control such as the ESA than to commercial harvest with gill nets in terminal areas,, to purposefully over harvest in order to control natural abundance so ultimately the people remain in a controlled state of being,, under a system dictated to them rather than a reality controlled by them...

If the people have abundant food/energy free and or cheap,, live in harmony with and not against God and Nature,, reality is positive,, easy,, and results in a high standard of living that is sustainable based on a model of subsistence rather than production/consumption model based on profits...