Frankly the river being down for whatever the reason is best. The lates are in the Chehalis are primarily from the Satsop with Bingham Cr & the East Fork the main source. The west Fork Satsop, is where most of the old Jan fish came from other streams have some but mostly remnants. Simply put jamming that many Recs into that sub basin with depressed runs would border on foolish to stupid. The state harvest was modeled in as well as tribal through the fall season to the winter steelhead fishery. Where the states impacts were used was WDF&W's choice.

Now the Dec Steelhead bit that is not a Steelhead fishery but a incidental Coho fishery has been booted about in other threads but the truth is that it was old WDG that got that bit going not the tribes . WDF ( now the combined WDF&W ) did zip, nuthin, nada so now it has been institutionalized and about impossible to reform.

Its not like the river is being completely closed, as it was in 2015. Steelhead fishing can be done, just have to release salmon after December 31.

I will have a problem with hatchery Coho being surplused, killed, at the hatchery when that same fish might have been released by a sportsman, further down river.

We all know "hatchery fish must die", just wish they weren't a State money maker......

Got a quick and thorough response to my clarification questions from Mike Scharpf, District 17 fish Bio for Region 6.

If I understand correctly, the gist of what he was saying is that the Satsop closed early to protect the late returning, primarily "wild" coho stocks, especially given the poor pre-season forecasted returns for coho in general this year. But if the return numbers of these late fish mirror the regular season returns, then I would say that there is little to worry about(take a look at the hatchery escapement #'s for Satsop springs and Bingham creek). And what we've been seeing lately are majority clipped(and fresh).

What I can't understand is why then wouldn't they also shorten the Chehalis season as these "wild" fish obviously must pass through that river to get to the Satsop. Mr. Scharpf mentions that the "Chehalis mainstem is where most of the annual effort occurs" and gives that as partial reason for the season length remaining unchanged there. But to me that just equals more people and more pressure on the fish downstream, which makes no sense if conservation is the goal upstream.
However Mr. Scharpf also states that "we will be looking at Satsop regulation this next season and try to pair them more closer to the Chehalis, in part due to hatchery programs on this river, and regulation simplification."

I very much appreciated Mr. Scharpf's prompt and honest replies to these questions and get the sense that these folks work very hard at trying to provide maximum opportunity for us rec fishers. But sometimes it seems that their hands are tied trying to please politicians, press and other not so honest co-managers within the system.

Thanks to those here who responded in helping me to understand this very complicated issue.

When yo look at closures versus openers when there are fish to be protected, the whole stock composition is, or should be, taken into account.

Fishing in the Satsop, for example, will hit Satsop fish. I know, Duh!. But, fishing in the Chehalis will have all the other stocks mixed in and buffer the Satsop fish.

This works if all the stocks in question are there at the same time. If, and Rivrguy knows way better than I, Satsop is the only late coho in the system then any opener in the watershed downstream of the Satsop will hit them.

Back when I was involved in chum management in PS we could show, on paper, that fisheries needed closing because the harvest had been taken because all of the stocks were, for accounting purposes, assumed to be equally available over the whole season. No timing differences. We knew, though, and the local Tribes were kind enough to point out, that the latest returning stocks had not even been fished on yet.

Reality and Management Models often collide.........