Cowlitzfisherman,

Here's what I wrote last March...it's just as much the law now as it was then.

In spite of your comment above...

"Surprisingly, a lot of the board members though that "fishing" was not a "right" but was in their minds, a "Privilege". A lot of opinions were voiced for both sides, but almost no one could support their opinions with any real legal facts or case laws that supported their position. "

...here are real legal facts, with real case law. Case law that went through the Supreme Court several times...and is indisputably the law of the United States of America. It's not about feelings, or opinions, or what you or I want...it is what it is, and here it is...again.

...

Here's the legal scoop. Remember, this issue is not about opinions, or belief systems, or wild fish, or natural born GGR's, or anything else. This is about the specific legal status of sportfishing in the state of Washington. If you don't like it, so be it.

"...fishing by other citizens and residents of the state [non-Indians] is not a right but merely a privelege which may be granted, limited or withdrawn by the state as the interests of the state or the exercise of treaty fishing rights may require." U.S. v. Washington, 384 F. Supp. 312, 332 (W.D. Wash, 1974).

That's it period. Federal law that cannot be usurped or abridged by state laws to the contrary, or by the opinions of those who hold the privilege.

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As I said last March, that is absolutely the final word on the subject. In the state of Washington sportfishing is a privilege.

The Public Trust Doctrine is an incredibly complex and wonderfully useful doctrine. It keeps the states from selling away public lands and waterways if there is not some corresponding benefit to the public that it owns those properties in trust for.

However, it does not give you any rights other than access to public lands and waters...and prohibits the government from giving a private entity the right to exclude you from those public lands and waterways. It does not give you a right to fish any river whenever you want...it gives you access to exercise your privilege when a river is open and you are using legal gear to target legal fish and retain them up to your daily or yearly limit.

Your logic is faulty in using it to make your privilege a right. It's exactly the same as saying that since the federal government owns Olympic National Park that you should be able to hunt elk there.

You can't. It's been closed for decades. In spite of the doctrine.

In some states, the state constitution provides that fishing and hunting is a right held by that state's citizens.

Ours does not...and even if it did, it wouldn't matter. Just as I wrote in March, states cannot pass laws that are contrary to federal laws, unless they have specifically been granted the right to do so from the federal government.

Fish on...

Todd.