Originally Posted By: Brent K
What really pisses me off is that I can't take my nephews cutthroat fishing on the Stilly right now but I can go to the Tulalip Bubble and kill 2 wild chinook if I want to. I don't believe for one second that Stilly chinook are not killed at the bubble yet I can't fish for trout even on the North Fork which is fly only. Why not put a floating line only, no weighted fly restriction in place on the NF and let people fish for the cutthroat that are there? They did it back in the 90's.


WDFW cannot adopt sensible conservation oriented regulations like that because the Stillaguamish Tribe will not let them. In order to have Chinook salmon seasons at all in Marine Area 9, WDFW will do whatever the PS treaty tribes tell them to do in those closed door meetings that occur during NOF.

Fly fishing for sea run cutthroat trout is extremely popular, in part because of regulations that go back to the early 1990s resulted in a healthy SRC population. But even so, that fishery is a very small "niche" market as recreational fishing in WA goes, so it's easy for WDFW to throw it under the bus when the Tribe insists.