Remember that we are fishing to a number, whether it be impacts or retained fish. As Smalma alluded to, the stock composition becomes really important. The ideal fishery is one where there are few fish that can't be killed. Since stocks change over time, each fishery has its own issues.

WDFW probably manages the rec fishery with an eye on participation. The measure of the fishery is days on the water. So, looking at the participation data they might look at making a switch to summer.

Those in NOF negotiations should be able to tell us what the (modeled) impact would be of switching days from summer to winter or back. It will be some sort of trade. Give up A to get B.

It's kind of nice to get the boat out on the salt in the winter between driftboat trips, but it's kind of nicer to get it out at dawn in August when the bait's all over the surface. That said I'm OK either way as long as we still get to fish.

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The best part about having winter fishing options as a boat owner are the ability to take the boat out. With ethanol fuel letting the boat sit all winter is a no-go for me. I would much rather be out running the boat around. Just think of all of the gremlins that come up both mechanically, and with your gear during blackmouth season. It is a great opportunity to weed out and fix all of these small issues before they become large headaches and shutdown your Spring-Fall days on the water.

Recent months have brought into focus what to those that have been paying attention the last few years has been obvious - the future of Puget Sound recreational fishing is not what has been the status quo! That future will include reduced opportunities; especially in those popular mixed stock marine fisheries.

These changes are being driving by the continued decline of the ESA stocks; in large part driven by continued decline in habitat productivity. After nearly 20 years it should be clear to most that collectively we as a society are not willing to modify our behaviors or invest to meaningfully improve key habitats that would support increase Chinook production. The result is many of the key Puget Sound Chinook stocks have slipped closer to extinction. As many clear in their response to the proposed 2017 co-manager 10 Chinook management plan NOAA has little choice but to require reduction in allowable impacts (lower Recovery Exploitation Rates -RERS). This is likely more severe restrictions in fisheries to limit impacts on those key stocks. The increase efficiency of the angler community in catching Chinook also insure that those shrinking allowed impacts will be magnified.

The question of the angler community to consider is do we continue to allow year to year manage decisions to be driven by reactive responses to that years situations? Or do we attempt to get in front of the issue by establish our priorities for the use of those limited impacts?

I'm not optimistic about the future of marine mixed stock fisheries in Puget Sound; especially those in the Straits and north Sound.

Curt

So a survival rate of 1-2% and we want to use poor science to try and increase the impact of sportsmen contact with salmonid.

The reason salmon lay from 1000-10,000 eggs per spawning pair and only 1-10 return to spawn, survival rate is piss poor. I don't know how this study amounts to anything meaningful!

So how many encounters would end up fish food if we did not encounter them? probably most...

Lets take 10 spawning pair that make it back to the river that is 10,000 - 100,000 eggs laid that wipes out most encounter impact by sportsmen.

Sportsmen have made sacrifices already, almost entirely selective fishing, single barbless hooks, closures and shortened seasons and still we are trying to squeeze every little bit of impact from sportsmen. What have the others done to improvise their deadly techniques? 0.....

Meanwhile commercial harvest of ESA listed fish bought and sold for profit goes right on as usual.... when a handful of those fish release from the nets would offset our impact...

Why not focus on the most impactful, Commercial harvest of ESA listed adult salmon that made it to adult status both Tribal and non-Tribal....

Sportsmen are the best thing for salmon, we fish selectively, we spend the most money to fund recovery, and communities. The more sportsmen and less commercial harvest is a win win.

Some of you on this website I question your motives?

When Baywolf was trying for transparency you were silent but when it comes to putting the squeeze on sportsmen and ignoring commercial harvest your out front...
Some of you seem like the John Mcain of the Republican party.

I have heard rumors of Tribal and Commercials pretending to be sportsmen in hopes of influencing the herd.....IDK ..

One of the huge problems in salmon recovery is the tragedy of the comment. At once it bothe everybody's fault and nobody's. My fishing doesn't hurt Chinook nearly as much as his net. His net, of course, does not hurt as much as that strip mall. And the strip mall does less damage than the seals. And so on.

There is no one thing we can do, other than reduce the human population to zero and nature fix our mess. Unfortunately, this allows one group to (correctly) point top "them" as being more damaging. Wild salmon cross too many boundaries, affect too much of the human world, to be worth changing our lives for.

Thanks for the breakdown guys! So contrary to my previous guess/understanding, the summer impacts, as a percent, are actually lower than winter. Makes sense with more migratory hatchery fish in the mix in the summer which would lower the impacts, as a % of total encounters.

That said, I want to keep my winter season.

Well the tragedy is unless everyone comes to the table nothing gets better, unless there is transparency noting gets better.

When one group takes actions to save ESA listed fish and other groups do nothing and we are all suppose to take one for the team, except that rule really only applies to sportsmen...

Its like making strict environmental rules for US companies, so the jobs get shipped off to China where they are 100 times worse on the environment.
This actually is more harmful on the environment but it makes some people feels good.......