I recently got this clip from a friend and found it to be very typical of our resource "managers". But then we know the net fisheries get the bulk of the fish no matter what damage is done to the wild stocks.

Hi all,
Attached is a letter to the editor by Ron Craig who lives in South Bend. Ron worked for years to restore Willapa natural salmon and when you read the letter you will see rather quickly why he is upset.
Now add this years commercial harvest issues and we have a problem headed our way. The link is to WDF&W's Commercial page and has the harvest numbers up. The nets so far have taken 12,700 Chinook & 54,429 Coho with more to go. It was modeled to around 7718 combined H&W for Chinook and 21,187 H&W Coho. http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/commercial/salmon/landings.html Here is the rub and it is a goody. The preseason forecast had Coho about 2 to 1 ( give or take a bit ) wild over hatchery. I have been told that WDFW staff have been tracking the mix / harvest and the NOR ( natural origin / wild ) are only coming up at 12%. What this means is simply that the Coho rum proportionality ( H+W ) has been lost. Region 6 has zero idea if a massive overharvest has occurred and failure to make escapement for Willapa Coho is a distinct and likely possibility.

Now compare this to last year when the shut down the Rec bay fishery with ZERO data to back it up. Strange how this agency works do not you think?

Willapa Bay has had hatchery produced salmon since 1890's, the commercial fisherman hired a fishery biologist to study the mixed stocks of salmon that swims into the Willapa Bay streams and their genetic makeup. It was determined by the biologist, no true Native Coho exists any more within the Bay and its tributaries . All the salmon have the same genetics as clipped fish returning to the hatchery that's why they get to harvest all Coho that swims into their nets. I have a friend who holds 4 Willapa gill net permits and he is expecting to have more days added to their fishery for coho.

You might be a bit off on that one. http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/commercial/salmon/netting_schedules.html

Even if the genetics of all the coho are identical, it does NOT mean there are no true native coho in WB. It means the coho represent an integrated stock whereas the wild fish and the hatchery fish are very similar, perhaps identical. If they were a segregated stock, the genetics would likely be very different, and the stocks would be managed separately (hatchery/wild).

I'm not at all surprised that WB coho are an integrated stock. It's likely the hatchery stock came from the wild stock, and have been maintained as such for 100 years, or whenever.

Lastly, wild coho are still wild coho. If they can withstand substantial commercial harvest, so be it. But my sense is, they can't. So without the hatchery continually putting out millons of smolts that are genetically identical to the wild fish, the commercial fishery would be as extinct as the stock within a few years.

Hatchery practices 35 years ago and prior were not up on scientific practices or standards, and they had little knowledge of the effects or even thought about the consequences of their practices. They used eggs and sperm from any fish that could get their hands on trying to create the super salmon and better fisheries. My old neighbor Harry Sean ( now gone to a better place) one time Washington's head fish biologist and I shared several conversations about the hatchery programs of mostly in Willapa Bay which is where he spent a lot of his time. He wasn't superised there are no longer a true Wild Coho from the original Willapa stock. There only goal was to fill the water with salmon.
Commercial netting schedules are always subject to change based on hatchery egg take and as adults return. The state doesn't need or want to surplus excess returning salmon even though they have been selling some surplus hatchery fish to the canneries.

A point to consider is that, prior to merger, the WDF hatcheries were supported by General Fund. The State's taxpayers footed the bill.

Following merger and the continuing budget crises, most or all of the hatchery production is funded by sport licenses. Why should the sporties spend their money to let the commercials have, essentially, a welfare-state business?

Ah nope the state has a Egg & Carcass contact that goes out to bid and any vender can bid but normally one or two do. Requirements from prisons to food bank are included for a portion of the fish. Non profits can seek out a buyer outside the agency contract but few non profits have surplus sales. Dollars generated go to the RFEG's and some other things and directly into the General Fund state dollars.

Harry Senn was one of the finest men I had the privilege to work with and a true gentleman. He will be missed by all who knew him.

Why should the Willapa netters be the only ones to gain a large increase in netting numbers, BECAUSE THE STATE'S MODEL was so far off?

What I'd do.......close 2 T to the netters, increase sport catch to 4 or 5 fish a day.

WDFW should at least act like they'd like the sports community gain in this poor model showing.

The fish are/were there......allow sports more fish, now!!!!!!!

The Model is TRUTH. Data is just noise.

WDFW has everything under control. It will all turn out well. Just like when Asiana Airlines landed at San Francisco last summer.

Autopilot is wonderful.

"Why should the sporties spend their money to let the commercials have, essentially, a welfare-state business"

+100

13,727 surplus Coho at the Naselle hatchery as of October 2nd and no sports fishery was allowed in river during the returning of these early fish. What a waste, even the gill netters couldn't stop them all.