"First off, lets worry about getting the fish up the rivers(this would be by pulling the nets)"

Got a plan for that? Seriously....what are you gonna do, sue them? If you really think the Quillayutes or Hoh's are going to voluntarily pull their nets for any other reasons than 'the fish are gone' or 'water's too high', you've got another coming.

Anyone ever see 'Mystery Men'? Whenever I hear someone crying 'Pull the nets, pull the nets!' I always think of Ben Stiller's character 'Mr. Furious'....

h20, I agree, but it still gets my hackles up when someone defends the nets as part of a sound management program.. and says that they don't have a negative effect on the runs, I know that they (the nets) are here to stay, but that doesn't mean I can't hate them. And voice my opinion.

Who knows, maybe someday intellegence and common sense will rule, rather than politics and pedigrees.

OK, just catching up on this topic after a couple days...

Rich - Yes, directly related but, obviously, also related to the introduction of early timed hatchery steelhead which is the portion of the run that sustains the high harvest rate that so many tribal and non-tribal fishers demand. I am not sure it is directly related to the Boldt decision as the diminishment of the early timed wild run steelhead was well along in most PS systems prior to 1974. As to your statement, "Steelheads survival is based on diversity not on numbers" I think you are partly correct. Survival is dependent on abundance (numbers), productivity, capacity and on a number of other factors... genetic diversity is certainly among these.

strawberry - The Queets spring chinook run has been returning at fairly low levels of abundance for decades. The sound management of this run has included documentation of this fact for at least 3 decades. However, there was one spawning year, 1984, that produced a significant increase in adult returns as 3 years olds in 1987, 4's in 1988 and 5's in 1989. There was also a good showing of 6's and 7's from this brood year. The spawning populations from 1987, 1988 and 1989 were, for the Queets spring Chinook population, quite large. However, this is one of the best examples of less than successful returns per spawner (i.e., the returns from these spawning years were way down again).... even when the majority of these fish were born and raised in the relatively pristine conditions of the upper Queets. As for recent year run sizes, obviously those population sizes do not support harvest... so there should not be any... in the river or in the ocean.

head hunter - You are wrong. The pre-season run size forecasts for Queets spring Chinook have been darn good (except for those three years where the returns were much higher). That does not change the fact that there are not enough fish returning to support a directed harvest. And as I have explained, even when there are fairly abundant spawners in some of the most pristine waters of the region, this is still no guarantee of increasing run sizes.

grandpa - You are wrong. Obviously there is a conservation concern for Queets Chinook. In order for the Tribe to have any harvest under these conditions there must be agreement in the management plan. The Tribe cannot just fish "because they can." Also, if what you say is correct, "because they could care less about anything but exploiting the resource every chance they get" then, by inference, there would be no resource left to exploit, now would there??? I am not privy to the elements of the agreement so it is difficult to know how many Chinook were allowed to be harvested in river.

h20 & stam - Who is defending the nets? My point was that Queets River populations are closely studied and the joint management that is employed by the Tribe and the State is very good because it is based on science. Isn't that what many of you keep saying? We need to use good data in managing our fisheries? Well it is being done on this system. You still may be against the use of nets and agree with the notion that good science is behind management in this system. However, harvest is harvest.... a dead fish is a dead fish whether caught on the end of a troll line in the ocean, caught in a gillnet or caught on a hook.

Finally, I want to wish all of you on this board a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

PNW, there's really not a right or wrong here, but, when it comes to numbers on paper, and sure salmon is on the rise, but, steelies on the decline, does that mean to up the limits? You've mentioned that sure that there is a down swing again, but remember that there is an upswing also to that so it goes both ways. Just avrg. is what should be looked at. Glad to have you on this BB cause without input like yours, it just wouldn't get me to thinkin' and I'd take fishin' for granted....

Robert

a dead fish is a dead fish whether caught on the end of a troll line in the ocean, caught in a gillnet or caught on a hook.

That is a true statement, but how contrary to say this when I fish with one hook compared to hundreds of feet of gillnet. How many fish at one time can a net kill compared to my "ONE" hook?. To compare the two is like saying that the WDFW is studying the situation to make things equitable, or like saying that G.W. is part of the intelligence community. It does sound like you are making an equal comparison between the two and that dog just won't hunt, not here.