My initial inclination was to ignore your post, but since you singled me out for part of it I decided to reply in part, clearly against my better judgement.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that sportfishermen think they pay all the bills that keeps WDFW running, when it's pretty clear that they pay only a fraction, but it's a larger fraction than any other population segment pays. License fees account for 27% of the operating budget (2017-2019). Those are clearly paid by people who purchase hunting and fishing licenses, tags, etc. But license buyers are also taxpayers who contribute to state General Fund monies, so at least 10% of that 21% comes from people who hunt and or fish, with 85 to 90% coming from what I describe as "unengaged" taxpayers, people who pay taxes but don't hunt or fish. Then there's federal money which comes from both users (people who hunt and or fish) and non-users. That is a large chunk of money, some of it is Mitchell Act money that funds state hatcheries on the Columbia River system as mitigation for federal dams. So anglers are part of that taxpaying group. Then there is the Dingell-Johnson federal money, and that all comes from anglers who buy fishing tackle. The upshot is that anglers provides substantially more than 27% of WDFW's operating budget.

What your post doesn't address is why the 85% or more of WA citizens who neither hunt nor fish should have to pay taxes to support hatcheries to raise salmon to be caught in Canada or commercial fishermen in WA as a direct welfare subsidy. How does that make sense? OK, enough about budget and funding.

Do you really think I single handedly "killed" the Cowlitz? For the record, I made sure that TP's license included terms requiring safe, effective, and timely fish passage around its dams, both upstream and downstream. I also made sure that the mitigation requirements included sufficient hatchery production to fill the gap in natural production, measured in 5-year rolling averages based on historical runsizes, and measured in actual adult recruits, not just by smolt production. And those terms were included in the license FERC issued in 2002. So are you holding me responsible for decisions made by other people post license issuance? If so, why?

BTW, the FERC license didn't "kill" the Cowlitz. Survival of both hatchery and wild fish have declined in every river system, both those near the Cowlitz and those quite far away. If you think I have such super-humanly power to influence freshwater and ocean survival factors, that's really something. Thanks, I guess.

Telling people to stop complaining is an attempt to stifle change and ensure the status quo. That's where we get more of the same. Telling sport fishermen to work together with those who stab sportfishing in the back hardly seems like constructive advice.