As with most factions of our society today, there are those who have it all figured out and no one can tell them any different... if you do, you are vilified. But that is OK with me because in my profession I run across these types of people all the time. I can tell you that I (personally) do not have these resource sharing and fishery conflict issues figured out. Why? Because most of these resource-sharing differences are unavoidable and many fishery conflicts are driven by differing policy decisions made by government entities.

Many of us sports fishers believe we are getting a raw deal… with crab or whatever species you want to talk about. You certainly can count me as not at all thrilled about not being able to go catch fresh crab past early September. But to blame this problem on other fishers and fisheries alone avoids, at least in large part, some of the common sense matters we have facing us in this region. For example, the crab resource in Puget Sound has been somewhat stable the last 10 years or so. Do you think the sport fishing population has been stable as well? I don't. We are a growing group. Look around you and it is easy to figure out. Have you noticed how crowded the Puget Sound region is getting? Do you enjoy getting stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on I-5... ON A SATURDAY??? The housing industry is booming. The boat building industry is booming. The new sporting goods warehouse stores are not popping up because the sport fishing population is going down... it is growing and these sporting goods companies track these kinds of statistics and build where the growth is. So, lets use some common sense here. Growing population, static resource... do the math.

For those of you on this site who are not close-minded, let me share with you some of the FACTS regarding the Dungeness crab fisheries in this State. And, by all means, do not accept my word alone… check these out with anyone else who actually KNOWS something about how crab are managed in this state.

FACT: Except for a portion of the coastline south of Point Chehalis down to and including the lower Columbia, Dungeness crab in our State are managed jointly by the State of Washington and treaty tribes.

FACT: It is important to know that treaty rights are subject to a number of court-ordered conditions. Whether these conditions are being met is often subject to dispute… between tribes, between a tribe and the state, etc..

FACT: Treaty rights do not guarantee catch. Until caught, the harvestable resource remains in public ownership. The treaty rights are those of the tribes and the tribal governing body and not those of the individual fisher. This is the same way it works for us sport fishers. We, as individuals, do not own the resource. We do not have a “right” to the resource and it is the same with any tribal member. We may qualify to purchase a license, which allows us to access the resource under specific conditions and rules. In the same way, tribal fishers are licensed by their tribes and subject to tribal ordinances and regulations.

FACT: The Dungeness crab resource is managed by region. The regions consist of areas such as the coast, the Strait, Hood Canal, North Sound, Central Sound and South Sound.

FACT: Annually, the WDFW and those treaty tribes located in the regions referenced above, determine the harvestable number of crab FOR EACH REGION. That harvestable number is divided equally. The WDFW manages the state’s portion of a region's harvestable crab and the treaty tribes manage theirs... under an agreed-to plan.

FACT: The WDFW makes policy decisions for each region as to how the non-treaty share is to be divided between sport fishers and commercial fishers. Each region is largely independent of the other.

FACT: On the coast the non-treaty share is harvested, almost entirely, by commercial fisheries that begin on or around December 1 each year. Up until a few years ago there was no pot limit for these commercial fishers. Some of the larger boats would fish 1,000 pots. At its peak the non-treaty coastal crab fishery had over 100,000 pots in the water. Today, there is a pot limit for each license holder and a moratorium on new vessels entering the fishery.

FACT: The non-treaty share of the Hood Canal region crab are harvested by sports fishers only.

FACT: The non-treaty crab fishery in the North Sound region, for example, is a mixture of sport and commercial fisheries. Normally, the commercial fishery does not start until October with the sport fishery operating during the summer months.

FACT: Commercial crabbers, BOTH TRIBAL AND NON-TRIBAL, sell to the same seafood dealers and processors, regardless of region. Catch from these sales is recorded in essentially the same manner with I.D. and signature of the fisher required. People that say otherwise do not know the commercial crab fishery. The possible exception to this is in Hood Canal where no non-Indian commercial crab fishery takes place. But even here several buyers from other regions come over and purchase crab from tribal crabbers.

FACT: The treaty tribes manage their crab fisheries with a different set of policy decisions than the WDFW does. In every region there are several tribes with treaty fishing rights to crab. The tribes within each region must determine how to conduct their fisheries. Typically (in Puget Sound), a pot limit is established along with a season or a fishing schedule. THE POT LIMIT IN ONE REGION IS NOT THE SAME AS THE POT LIMIT IN ANOTHER REGION... also, the tribes that fish in one region may not be the same tribes that fish in another.

FACT: There are concerns about catch accountability in the Puget Sound crab fishery... all portions of the Puget Sound crab fishery. There are many fishery management biologists, tribal and state, working on these issues... right now.

PROFESSIONAL OPINION: It does little to support the cause of the sport fishing public to declare that the sport fishers "only get 17% of the crab" in Puget Sound. This just distorts the issue. What would be much more useful and more telling is to list each region, figure out what the non-treaty share was and then compare the non-treaty commercial catch with the sport catch over, say, the last 5 years. With those statistics at hand one could determine whether a case could be made for some re-distribution of harvestable crab within a region.

Finally, I hope I do not stoop to the low level of behavior exhibited by several people on this site. If I do, please let me know and I will correct myself. I endeavor to not point fingers like some or make comments about individuals, like some. It is obvious that several folks here maintain hatred for certain segments of our society and wish to blame their problems on those they hate. I would remind everyone that no one is perfect, no government is blameless for their decisions and the actions of one person do not reflect the actions of another. Be careful with that broad brush, it’s a dangerous tool. The original question was about the accounting of commercial crab catches. I have offered perspective you may not get from the typical person on this site. And because we live in a free country with a democratic form of government, people are free to take it or leave it. Your choice!