Like many of you, I have paid attention to the situation of our fisheries in our State for a long time. I’ve participated directly (hundreds of hours of interactions) and in-directly (Campaign to bring more transparency to the process), in hopes of making some small difference for the better to our fisheries.

After some long soul searching, I’m wondering if it’s not time I wake up and see the truth? The truth that we will never see our sport revive to any degree, nor see any substantial improvements if things continue as they are.

Drifter brought up some very valid points in his post under the WInter Steelhead Escapment post. I’d like to add a few more that have a negative impact on the fisheries in general and more specially, any real chance of recovery.

In my opinion, we are circling the drain, and all we can do is post talking points and discussions on boards to each other. True, there are some small victories, but in the larger picture, the Sports Angler is being bulldozed over, and there is very little we can do.

We have State Representatives and Governor who are on the take. By that I mean they sell themselves and their values to the highest contributor. Unfortunately, we all know where a lot of that money comes from.

We have a Department that is bloated with leadership who encourage a culture of secrecy and bend over backwards to appease commercial and tribal interests.

We have a Commission who has become nothing more than a front for the departments attempt to trick the Sports Anglers into thinking we still have some say in the fisheries management decisions.

We have Fish advisory groups, or fish mafia as they are know. They get involved behind the scenes and make deals, to who’s benefit. Sometimes, their participation actually muddies the waters. And who are they supposed to represent, us? The sportsmen did appoint them.

Also, we have a number of groups, organizations, associations and clubs who refuse to work together for what ever reason.

I apologize in advance if I stepped on any ones toes here. I know a lot of guys put in a lot of hard work trying to make a positive difference. I don’t mean to take anything away from those efforts. I’m just doing some self soul searching and, at least for me, the future of hope for any substantial recovery is bleak.

Even with all the recent failures, catastrophic miss steps and the abundantly clear message of dismal fish returns there is still no paradigm shift to business as usual. All the signs point to continued demise of the fish we all love, and the citizen sports angler is going to continue to take the hardest hit.

As Einstein stated: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”