Snohomish/Skykomish get screwed

[skyrise]

The Communist/Evil tree huggers are running rampant in this state and now have basically shut down salmon fishing on the Snohomish system. Along with the Stilly shut down every year now you know they are going after the Skagit next and then onto the Green river then Puyallup, etc. No good reason for this basically a shut down just excuses they (WDFW) can find and use to force us out. Next excuse will be to shut down salmon or steelhead fishing anywhere because killer whales need the food and they are more important than people. the expected return for summer kings is 7,500 this year ! Not 750 or 1,750 but well over 5,000 which the wallace hatchery easily exceeds every single year. and then there is the restriction on pink salmon. You get what you vote for.

 

[johnnyboy]

Saw this last night.

Fishing and hunting in this state is in serious danger. At 21, I haven't fished nearly as long as most people in here, but I could clearly see the writing on the wall. At the rate we are going, I wouldn't be surprised to see a day where I'm gonna have to hang up all my salmon and steelhead gear. And it's not all because of poor returns, it's because the current (and most likely future) generation of fishery managers don't care about the recreational angler.

 

[Guy Gregory]

I don't pretend to understand the biology, so I'll leave that discussion to others.

But for those of you who think the recreational angler ever had a voice in WA beyond what it has now, you're freakin' dreaming. Recreation is now, and always has been in last place behind commercials and later the tribes. They even combined the old Dept. of Fisheries with the Dept. of Game to create DFW in an effort to fix it. It turned out to be simple whitewash. Still.

See, for example, the emphasis on hatcheries.

I'll grab the popcorn, prove me wrong.

 

[Irafly]

One thing to always remember is the state managers are almost always constrained by NOAA when it comes to salmon and steelhead fisheries. Please keep that in mind when you throw blame around.

 

[Wanative]

The Communist/Evil tree huggers are running rampant in this state and now have basically shut down salmon fishing on the Snohomish system. Along with the Stilly shut down every year now you know they are going after the Skagit next and then onto the Green river then Puyallup, etc. No good reason for this basically a shut down just excuses they (WDFW) can find and use to force us out. Next excuse will be to shut down salmon or steelhead fishing anywhere because killer whales need the food and they are more important than people. the expected return for summer kings is 7,500 this year ! Not 750 or 1,750 but well over 5,000 which the wallace hatchery easily exceeds every single year. and then there is the restriction on pink salmon. You get what you vote for.

Orcas can't go to the store and buy fish to eat.

 

[Jake Watrous]

 

[Long_Rod_Silvers]

wait, what happened?

 

[Long_Rod_Silvers]

One thing to always remember is the state managers are almost always constrained by NOAA when it comes to salmon and steelhead fisheries. Please keep that in mind when you throw blame around.

When you say 'almost always', what comes to mind for examples where NOAA isn't involved? Kokanee fisheries? Chelan chinook?
Never really thought about it, but I bet it's a short list.

 

[fatbillybob]

Orcas can't go to the store and buy fish to eat.

Sure but we need intelligent management with input from boots on the ground. As a kid I used to catch legal sized halibut and yellow tail in redondo harbor. Marine acts that protected seals prevented management of a growing seal population that ate all the fish. The only thing that got the seals to move off is eating all their food supply. Now if you caught a yellow tail in the harbor you might be in the newspaper!

 

[Salmo_g]

The communist evil tree huggers have done all this? News to me, and I thought I was pretty well informed. Can I find this information in the Communist Manifesto?

 

[Jake Watrous]

The communist evil tree huggers have done all this? News to me, and I thought I was pretty well informed. Can I find this information in the Communist Manifesto?

Or come to a meeting. Next month we're making shrines to Al Gore out of granola and throwing free-trade darts of sustainably-harvested bamboo at a poster of Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones fondling an elephant.

 

[Long_Rod_Silvers]

The communist evil tree huggers have done all this? News to me, and I thought I was pretty well informed. Can I find this information in the Communist Manifesto?

It's in the appended version. New chapter, complete with citations and acknowledgements.

 

[RCF]

There are not enough characters in a post to list all the causes.

Add to that where not enough info is known but suspected, there are also not enough characters in a post to list all of them.

To point out just one cause is fruitless.

 

[Wanative]

Sure but we need intelligent management with input from boots on the ground. As a kid I used to catch legal sized halibut and yellow tail in redondo harbor. Marine acts that protected seals prevented management of a growing seal population that ate all the fish. The only thing that got the seals to move off is eating all their food supply. Now if you caught a yellow tail in the harbor you might be in the newspaper!

It used to be the fish and game in Washington outnumbered the people
substantially.
Now it's the other way around.
That makes it a little tougher. Throw in court decisions and it makes it downright difficult.
That said I agree that managing our fish and game resources could be done in a manner more equitable to us tree choppers and capitalist 'mericans
The general public needs to undergo a quantum shift of the mindset that consumption is the be all end all of the outdoors experience in our state.
We're not in Kansas anymore Dorothy.

 

[Irafly]

When you say 'almost always', what comes to mind for examples where NOAA isn't involved? Kokanee fisheries? Chelan chinook?
Never really thought about it, but I bet it's a short list.

Honestly I’m not 100% sure, but I thought there were some southern Puget Sound fisheries not impact d by NOAA. Again, I could be wrong.

 

[onefish]

We are experiencing the same trends here in BC.

 

[kerrys]

To many people. All wanting a piece. Soon, it all will be gone. Blame whoever you want, in the end Pogo was right; “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

 

[N. Metz]

I think it's a conglomerate of factors, including WDFW bending over for the tribes and commercial interests. Habitat destruction (logging is a big culprit and destroys spawning habitat), tribal fishing, commercial fishing, sport fishing harvest (although a drop in the bucket compared to tribal and commercial fishing), ocean conditions, and poor management all factor in. It's hard not to envision a complete shut down of salmon and steelhead fishing with the way things are going. Which is a shame. However, not entirely unpredictable.

Humans have been on the planet a short time but have managed to really mess it up.

 

[Emily27]

The communist evil tree huggers have done all this? News to me, and I thought I was pretty well informed. Can I find this information in the Communist Manifesto?

It was actually in the little red book, did you not see the part about killing all the salmon alongside the rats and the sparrows?

 

[Salmo_g]

I think it's a conglomerate of factors, including WDFW bending over for the tribes and commercial interests. Habitat destruction (logging is a big culprit and destroys spawning habitat), tribal fishing, commercial fishing, sport fishing harvest (although a drop in the bucket compared to tribal and commercial fishing), ocean conditions, and poor management all factor in. It's hard not to envision a complete shut down of salmon and steelhead fishing with the way things are going. Which is a shame. However, not entirely unpredictable.

Humans have been on the planet a short time but have managed to really mess it up.

You're not entirely wrong. WDFW does not advocate for recreational fishing in western WA anadromous waters. The reason, aside from not giving a shit about you and me, is that the Dept. will do whatever the treaty tribes tell them to in order to have NT recreational salt water fishing seasons for salmon. So recreational salmon and trout fishing in streams gets thrown under the bus. That's reason number one. The second is that the governor prizes tribal cooperation more than the other 98+% of WA citizens. That trickles down through the state agencies. WDFW acquiesces to NT commercial fishing mainly because the seafood processors lobby the Legislature far more effectively than sport fishermen do. It amazes me how cheap it is to buy a state senator or representative.

Additionally, it may help to understand WDFW's priorities.

1. Preserve all FTEs (full time equivalent employees). This is basic to maintaining and growing a bureaucracy.
2. Preserve and expand the agency budget. This is essential to #1. So taking your tax and license fee dollars and giving you little or nothing in return is just the process of fulfilling the agency priorities.
3. WDFW is first and foremost, "The Washington Department of Salmon." Let there be no mistake. Even though WA salmon harvests are but a small fraction of what they were 30 years ago, the Dept. continues to spend more money on salmon hatcheries than anything else by a significant margin. Combined with the money spent on salmon management, that returns far fewer salmon to recreational creels than it does resident trout to recreational anglers, salmon is where the money gets spent. Money for trout and game hunting almost look like a budgetary after-though by comparison, even though most of the Department's budget comes from taxpayers who mostly don't hunt or fish, although hunters and anglers both pay taxes and buy licenses and permits.
4. Harvest of fish and game is co-equal with preserving and perpetuating the state's fish and game resources. The Dept. has more direct authority over harvest than it does the habitat that preserves fish and game populations. So that's why we see more emphasis on harvest than preservation.

Habitat degradation has slowed down significantly due to the many environmental protection regulations. However, degradation still out paces habitat preservation because the ever-increasing human population require space and resources that consume and degrade habitat. Since that is Debbie Downer kind of news, agency policy wonks and politicians would rather you think that we can have it both ways, preserving fish and wildlife and accommodating human population growth. They're wrong.

There is a lot of complaining about the effects of tribal and commercial fishing. For the most part, neither contributes very much to reduced productivity of salmon and steelhead populations in the last couple decades. Mainly it is that fish caught by tribes or NT commercials are not available to be fished for by recreational anglers, which is a very different thing. Allocation is not the same as reduced fish populations, although the effect on sports fishing is often the same.

While freshwater salmon and steelhead habitat continues to be lost at a slow rate, the ocean survival of salmon and steelhead smolts to returning adults has crashed at a very rapid rate. That is the main reason recreational steelhead seasons have been curtailed. The other reason for freshwater stream closures, of course, is the previously mentioned demand by treaty tribes that WDFW close them.