I have to agree with darth baiter. Without a doubt WDW has lost respect of much of its historic base and has done little to instill confidence that they even care about the fishers and hunters of this state or even demonstrated why any of us should support their budget request. But at the same time I realize that fishing and hunting are become more and more a niche sports that surely will become less important if financial support for traditional programs continue to be decreased.

My assessment is that as interest in the our outdoor activities decrease there is zero chance that this State's legislators will come to our rescue. On there other hand there is the remote chance that WDFW leadership might come to its collectively sense. Doing so will require that they come to grip with their past management mistakes, figure out how to effectively communicate with its potential constitutes, actually follow its own mandates and policies and actually move from a reactive management to one focusing on vision for the future with a proactive management strategy to achieve that vision. And yes I agree that chances of those changes happen are slight but still not zero! That is why I continue to expend significant time trying to move the WDFW management needle in that direction.

That said like many I find myself spending more time recreating out of Washington. For decades a major focus of my fall fishing has been chasing sea-run cutthroat on my home rivers with a fly rod. Now in spite of continued abundant cutthroat populations in those rivers in a few hours I'm leaving for a week of trout fishing on an interior BC lake.

Curt