Here is the email I sent to my reps - my senator is on the ways and means committee!

Honorable Representatives,

On Saturday the 15th, I attended and gave testimony at the WDFW Commissioners meeting. You can view this meeting here: https://player.invintus.com/?clientID=2836755451&eventID=2019061004
I attended in response to a reported internal email from Director Susewind to his WDFW colleagues with the subject heading of; 2019 - 21 Operating Budget Update. In this email was a paragraph which I will quote here from the copy that I reviewed:

• None of the other proposed enhancements are funded. For example, the current Skagit catch and release fishery will not receive funding and thus that opportunity will be eliminated.

Eliminated. Not might be, or possibly, or under consideration, but that opportunity will be eliminated. This fishery that has been in existence since 1981 was closed due to an ESA listing that encompassed all rivers that emptied into Puget Sound due to poor returns of steelhead. Except the Skagit, due in large part that its headwaters are behind conservation borders, was not experiencing the same fate as these other rivers. As a member of a group known as Occupy Skagit we lobbied WDFW for six years with their own science to develop a basin specific management plan to allow a fishery that NMFS would approve.

WDFW did their part and developed the plan, NMFS did their part and approved the plan. The wild fish, which I might add come at a cost of zero dollars to the state, came back as always and we had a very well regulated season in 2019 from February 1 to April 30th. Now it is time for you to do your part and develop a plan to permanently fund this fishery and limited fisheries like it to come in the future. In this time of ESA listings, declining runs, and an ever increasing human population fisheries like the recent catch and release season on the Skagit will have to become the new norm. Business as usual has brought us to this defining point. Someone needs to step up and make a legacy decision for recreational anglers of the future.

Because of the required monitoring included in the plan some interesting data was collected. For instance, anglers from 214 different WA zip codes representing 21 different counties were interviewed. A review of the raw data also found that one out 11 anglers (9.4%) lived outside Washington state. Of those anglers 88.4% were from US states other than Washington. Anglers came from Canada and the UK. In years past the Skagit C&R season was populated with a Who's Who of the fishing world. Today, if you fish for steelhead, a Skagit steelhead is on your bucket list. The Skagit fishery, once the flagship fishery of the state, will die. Not for a lack of fish, but for a lack of dollars.

WDFW has determined that each angler's trip is worth $215 to the economy. Much of that spent near the destination. Going on the data from this spring of 7,241 angler days, this comes to $1,556,815.00. Over one and a half million dollars return for a monitoring and enforcement investment of approximately $200,000. Do you know anyone in District 39 that wouldn't like that kind of return on their tax dollars?

Recreational angling is a bi-partisan sport. It's time to drop the politics, come together and move recreational angling into the 21st century.

If, at any time you would like to meet over coffee or lunch to discuss this any further, I will gladly make myself available.

Thank you for your time,


Wayne Cline
Occupy Skagit