Having seen the inner-workings of the tribal fishery for years opened my eyes to many things. The Boldt decision could have been appealed all the way to the supreme court (federal) but to my knowledge it never was. Now after all these years for it to be repealed would take nearly an act of God. As far as the fishery services of either Oregon or Washington doing ANYTHING about tribal fishing, I know many in that field and some at the upper management level...... Here is the problem. They are allocated a limited budget and believe me they do not want to waste it on litigation. Anytime in the past they have tried to impose any restrictions on the tribal fishery it would result in an immediate lawsuit by the tribes which the state fishery agency must then pay legal fee's (and often the tribes legal fee's) and almost always lose. The general attitude has become "why waste the money fighting litigation we will most likely lose?"....... The tribes have become increasingly wise to this fact and know that no matter how out of line with regulations or popular opinion they become, they will always prevail by waving the treaty and Boldt decision in the court room. I have had 2 game wardens tell me in the past that even when they see infractions committed by tribal members, they will rarely issue any type of ticket because it will always be thrown out of court under the auspice of "exercising treaty rights" and they also do not want to waste resources or "my time"
How do we solve this? No easy answer, but I do believe that support of the WDFW in pursuit of litigation is a good move. Although it does deplete the monetary resources in an already limited budget, I believe that the long term benefit to the fishery in general and sportsman interests are well worth the money. Keep in mind though, that the tribes legal fee's are completely funded with federal $$ and if they had to pay their own legal fee's out of their own pockets they might not rush into court so quickly and would then possibly begin to be more compliant and cooperative with the F&G agencies...........

MC