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Nice to meet everyone and just to let the author of the topic know, this is a very good topic and refreshing to see all the great comments left by all the contributors.
Knowledge is key in making things the best they can be for us, the fishermen, and more importantly the fish. Going to the trouble of gathering statistics is an arduous task and sometimes one must allow for variables in calculations of fish and adjust accordingly.
Being a fisherman my entire life and having been granted the opportunity to learn from wise old cagey cats that have seen it all, One of the biggest problems here is that issue we all know to well called, "Dams". They were key in the declines of fish that call the pacific northwest habitat home.
Instinct in salmon and steelhead is very strong and if someone came to your home and took away the road to your feeding grounds, you would be inclined to move, just like the fish have. Alaska has always produced more fish due to the lack of human beings putting up roadblocks to their foodsource and will continue to do so in the future.
Fish numbers here in idaho have declined since the colombia dams and the snake river canyon dams have been built (even though we've built them stairs) to provide human beings with hydro-electric power. Hatcheries have been developed to bolster fish and for the most part, have helped in the upper parts of once thriving fish populations that would rival alaska now.
The fishing here on the Big Salmon and Little Salmon rivers in Idaho have been wonderful the past few years and its been an eye opener to me and some of the local old timers. Its nice to see, yet it hasnt been like in the past when you could visibly see the salmon and steelhead with your own eyes as they crashed through the water side by side, jockying for position to move up. I think we have been lucky in spite of the dams and the indian fisheries harvesting them before they could make it home.
To make my point, Until an alternate source of energy here in the pacific northwest comes available, the rivers will not be opened up to the fish thus things will not improve for them. We are now reading the book that someone else has written and seeing the end result of what they perceived as the Great King Salmon and Steelhead legacy. Our thirst for energy is greater than re-inventing the fish wheel that once was and maybe someday... will be again. Get used to the way things are for now, they are here to stay with us, and the mighty fish, we all know and love and rarely see.
Bigger Fishbowl = Bigger fish...and more of em... it's simple.
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