Bay wolf,

I have tried most of my life to wear the glasses of objectivity. One of the biggest things that reduces the ability of sport fishermen to affect change is their habit to aggregate every thing that they see as being wrong and blaming WDFW for it. In this world there are things that are within our control and things that aren't. The same applies to WDFW. IMO it's counter-productive to blame WDFW for low ocean survival, as if WDFW or anyone else can do anything about that. Same goes for reducing hatchery production of PS Chinook and steelhead. They are ESA listed, and NMFS calls the shots and has required WDFW to change hatchery stocking numbers.

I think we're better off to criticize WDFW for the things that they have some or total control over. Take NOF for instance. The treaty tribes have the Dept. by the short and curlies and control non-treaty sport fishing in PS and tributaries. So why has it taken until the on-line meeting with Susewind a couple weeks ago for Ron Warren to publicly admit that yes, the tribes do call the shots, and that is likely to continue. This has been going on since 2015 that we know of.

WDFW currently depends on piggy-backing on the BIA ESA Section 7 permit from NMFS for all PS fisheries that potentially affect anadromous fish. As far as I know, WDFW has made no attempt to secure its own separate permit. And has no intention of doing so. What I hope to do is coalesce enough fishermen to pressure the Commission and then the Director to explain why they haven't or aren't trying to get their own permit. And since they aren't then explain to NT sportfishermen how our interest is served and not served by the Dept's. staying the course of piggy-backing on the BIA permit.

Develop truth; develop facts. These are the possible seeds of change. Ranting on the internet and shouting at the Director and the Commissioners isn't.

The Governor, state Senators, and state Representatives do sell their souls. They all do. It's what representative government has been doing since it began, and thus it shall ever be. Our job is to discover which of those souls can be bought by us, literally and or figuratively.

We have to pressure the Governor (probably useless), Commissioners, and Director to walk the talk of transparency. (At the Commission meeting last month in B'ham I asked the Commissioners to instruct the Director to ban the use of the terms "transparent" and "transparency" in all correspondence with constituents until such time as they actually walk that talk. Should have seen Susewind's expression!) Now that they know that we have ways of discovering the truth, I think there exists the possibility of a decrease in direct lying.

This arose from the Stillaguamish River closure that the Department insisted was necessary for Chinook conservation. This is a river that for the last 100 years has been most noted for fly fishing for summer steelhead and sea run cutthroat trout and no detectable impact to Chinook. So it came out that the reason for the closure was due to tribal demand that even the incidental hooking of one Chinook was just too much for them to tolerate and not because of too high of incidental mortality due to sport fishing.

Some in the Dept. are aware that if they are going down the path of closing entire river systems every time a salmon run isn't going to make escapement, then they are going out of business. And I'm doing what I can to drive that point home.

I don't blame the Commission for many of the adverse outcomes. Most of them have very little fisheries expertise, so they rely on Dept. presentations, which sometimes reveal only what they want to, and not the complete story. For the foreseeable future, I think it's our job to inform the Commission when they don't get the full story from the Dept. I do blame the Commission for back tracking on the Columbia River policy to phase out NT gillnetting from teh lower CR. I do blame the Commission for giving the Dept. cover for not complying with the Open Meetings Act when meeting with tribes at NOF. Mind you, I don't want to attend NOF meetings, but it's past time for the Department to include CCTV in the meetings, calling the tribes' bluff of walking out. What's the worst that can happen? WDFW doesn't get to piggy-back on the BIA permit. With all the closures, it's worth taking that hit and then taking the fight to NMFS for a permit (Section 10, most likely).

In all this, there are things we can do and things we can't do. I think there are things on the "can do" list that can effect change that can improve, or at least restore some lost fishing opportunity. It's not going to make the large salmon and steelhead returns of yesteryear suddenly reappear, because that choice is unfortunately not on the menu.

Sg