Question:

If its is so darn important for WDFW to maintain all that "viable information" about our sport catch records; then why in the heck is WDFW now proposing a new change in the 2003-2004 fish license regulations (i.e. #26 of the proposed rule changes)? If you don't need to have limits on hatchery fish (which is probably about 95% of what we are now allowed to harvest), why then do we want to pay for the cost of doing the punch card thing?

If they (the WDFW) are so concerned about the number of "hatchery" steelhead that you and I are catching, then why is #26 being proposed? Does somebody have their heads up their …?

To me, it's pretty obvious that the "old punch card" system is not needed anymore. It's kind of like using more of the old wire coded tags again to get more of the same information that they already know and have…so why do it? Is it possible that it may just be more big $$$$ for the WDFW budget each year?

I want to see just how much the "punch cards" program is really costing the sport fishers before I can justify continuing its cost in my mind! Maybe it's worth it…but most likely its not!

Does the word "bureaucrat jobs" mean anything to you? The only logical reason to me appears to be simply that it is a way that limits the amount that one can harvest each day.

Don't you wonder why the commercial boys aren't required to have "punch cards" too for their catch?

So it's supposed to keep us honest …right? But if that is true; why doesn't the state make us install a device on our cars that "records" each time we go over the maximum speed limit of 70 mile per hour. No where in the state is it "legal to go over 70 per hour"...right? So why not make us do that too? After all, IT THE LAW…RIGHT?

Maybe someone can figure out how much money the state would be able to save "us tax payers" if we did not have to print and process all those punch cards, the salaries, staff , and all the benefits and perks that go with each, and the computers network that it now takes to "purchase" a new license or punch card.

In my opinion, the "punch card" is a model "T" and its time has already come and gone!

Almost everything in the WDFW system is now done by existing "long standing data" when it comes to "punch cards". I am sure that they have plenty of "models" to run their data and get whatever results they may be seeking!

It has been my personal experience, that our "punch card" data for the most part, is only used to justify a commercial fishery… again, it is only my opinion, that it is being used in many places to justify an ongoing commercial fishery. That's why the commercial fishery is never cut short because WDFW always uses it's same age old excuse…we don't have all the punch card data in yet so we don't know how many fish have been harvested!

Punch cards should only be used/or needed to limit harvest on wild fish if they allow such a harvest to occur! Who on this board really care about harvesting "to many" hatchery breed or hatchery produced fish?

I know how WDFW has calculated the catch data and statistics on the Cowlitz in the past years and it was a real "joke". Maybe those times are changing, but I have not seen it happen as of yet!

You got to ask yourself; why in the devil are sport fishers the "only" user group that HAS TO turn in "catch record punch cards!!! That in itself should tell you "the rest of the story"!

Cowlitzfisherman