The above letter makes all the sense in the world. I have not been a Willapa Bay activist, but WDFW's WB policy looks like something that was intended from the outset to be as bass-ackwards as possible. The whole idea of managing for significant natural fall Chinook production in an environment that historically and naturally was never a major producer of fall Chinook is a questionable intention. And then to select the Willapa River as the bastion of natural Chinook production, when it has no environmental possibility of ever achieving that status makes a rational person's head spin. At the very least the policy should include environmental analyses of the Willlapa and Naselle basins to assess natural Chinook production feasibility now, and into the future.

I sent a lengthy letter to the Director and Commission in early June listing eight "gripes" pertaining to the Department being stuck in the 20th century and running headlong over the cliff of irrelevancy by working against the interest of recreational angling. Two months later I received an 8-page reply which doubled down on the dumb-foolery that indeed, the Department that is committed to transparency must conduct meetings behind closed doors, and supports recreational fishing by closing several key recreational fisheries lest the treaty tribes object, and spend our tax and license fee dollars to support salmon fishing in Canada and commercial fishing in Washington. And yes, the Department and Commission think it reasonable to expect that we will lobby the Legislature to increase its General Fund appropriation and an increase in recreational license fees to continue the Department's status quo effort that undermines recreational fishing in Washington State. Yee gads.