Ok, here is a copy of my email to the director:


Dear Dr. Koenings:

As an avid sports fisherman, it saddened me greatly to learn you were planning to deprive sportsmen of the final two weeks for the catch and release fishery for native steelhead on the Green River. Before I just say you're making a wrong decision (I am leaning that way), I would like to learn what information you have and how you get it that leads you to smack the sportsmen of this state such a hard blow.

By normal standards, the native steelhead run in the Green River peaks around March/April. Yet, this year there seems to be an abundance of wild steelhead in the Green. As early as it is and as good as it is, it will only get better as more fish come in. What factors are you using to predetermine the run size? There is no "locks" or viewing window on the Green. Native steelhead don't arrive at a central point like a hatchery like the hatchery fish do, they'll spawn anywhere in the river. That would make it all but impossible to locate all but the most obvious redds. To this day, I have never seen a game warden or fish checker on the Green inquiring on how many fish are being released by sportsmen. With no eyes on the river, how are you making this decision?

Perhaps you are basing your predictions for the native run on the dismal hatchery run. I'm not a biologist, but everything I've read has lead me to believe that wild fish and hatchery fish have very little in common. You could have a great hatchery return and a low native return or a poor hatchery return and a great native return (as we are seeing this year).

Take the Snohomish system for example. Wasn't it about 6 or 7 years ago the department made it C&R only through March? Now, the last 3 years you have closed it completely in March and yet they say the run is not improving. Obviously, if sportsmen aren't allowed to fish, they aren't the problem, so where does the problem lie? Do you just plan to close down all native fisheries at the end of February?

I read or heard somewhere that the department considers there to be somewhere around a 60 - 70% mortality rate on released fish. Obviously, this is not true, as any sportsman will tell you, but if the department does indeed have this idea, it's a lose/lose situation for the sportsmen. If sportsmen are catching a large amount of natives, a sign of a healthy run, you'll close the river to protect the fish from the realistically very small mortality percentage. Whereas if the sportsmen aren't catching very many, you'll close the river because obviously there aren't that many fish in the system and the few that are there need to be protected.

I am writing this letter out of anger and frustration because every year, it seems the sportsmen lose more and more opportunity. It's easy for the department to make the unsubstantiated claim that the run is too small, but when all realistic evidence indicates otherwise, it makes me really question the leadership of the department. What changes are you enacting to rehabilitate these fish so that in the future sportsmen will be able catch and release fish through <gasp> the end of March? The way the trend is going, it appears that in two or three years, rivers will be closing to us on February 15th, and a few years after that on Jan 31. This trend can't continue.

I look forward to your response,