Maybe the tribes should reconsider about netting wild fish and keeping them, and selling them as table fare!!

Did the co-managers stop netting the Green?

The river will close to all sport fishing beginning Feb. 16.

SPORT fishing....netting is still ok?

I personally talked to a muckleshoot last summer and he was bragging about how he and one of his cronnies were out in the sound shrimping. He was telling me how he and his buddy personally potted over 100lbs. in one afternoon. Personally I told him that I thought that was overkill and then he immediately said it was for subsistence. I know that it was B.S. because he told me earlier in the conversation that he sold his boat because he was tired of fishing. This just goes to show you what good stewards of a resourse the tribes get away with.

Grandpa: I forgot to post all of the WDFW notice. here is the rest.

The lower Duwamish/Green River was scheduled to close to sport fishing for steelhead Feb. 29, while the middle and upper stretches of the river were scheduled to close March 15. Commercial tribal fisheries were closed on Dec. 22, 2003, more than a month earlier than scheduled, after the in-season update for the hatchery run showed a very low return.

How are they able to predict the native run? Every year it's been getting better. Are they basing their prediction on the hatchery return or what?

The river may close to sport fishers on the 16th but the indians will still be fishing. They will be out in their sleds and drift boats with all their buddies well into March, just like every other year!

They predict native returns on redd counts from previous years. These counts are easily doctored to favor certain parties!

There's two major flaws with that argument. The first and most obvious is that there's no where they're going to find every redd. Unlike hatchery fish, the natives don't all return to a single, central point to spawn. They can spawn anywhere in the river and in most cases, there's no way the redds would be visible.

The other problem is that they would have known what the redd count was 2 or 3 years ago when they set the season to end March 16. I doubt the number of redds in 2000 - 2002 have changed since the regulation pamphlet for this year was published. That argument just doesn't hold water. If they knew in advance this would be a poor run, why would they set the season to end March 16?

Jacob,

I think the issue is they do the redd counts and make a prediction of returns based on a certain percentage.

Then when the season comes around they guestimate the return they are getting on the hatchery fish and then re-guestimate the return for the natvies based on that.

So if the hatchery fish are returning at a rate less than initially predicted they assume the native fish will also. Thus the mid-season closure.

A bummer certainly, however I feel its better to be safe than sorry.