Kind of a side note....Not so long ago the Halibut advisory groups had meetings with the Makahs about helping them with spreading the halibut season out so it is not concentrated in such a short window. One proposal was to open the straits inside instead of the Sekiu River as the Western most boundary it would be moved to the Tatoosh -Bonilla line....The proposal was shelved because a halibut fishery early in the season in area 4B (Neah Bay) would cause undo impact to the numerous Chinook stocks milling in the area. The group sat down at the table with the Makahs....to help them....

So all the while the Makahs were about to embark on a uncontrolled harvest of the same stocks we were trying to help protect.

Bottom line to me is that the tribes do not do what is best for the resource but harvest as many fish as they can get away with. They do this with no oversight....no monitoring and no verification. Essentially they are rogues in co-manager's clothing. WDFW supposedly manages hand in hand with the tribes but it is quite obvious that when WDFW is not pandering to the non-tribal commercial over harvesters they are bowing to kiss the asses of the tribes.

We could very well see severe cutbacks in our 2005 / 2006 salmon seasons while the Makahs will most likely just keep on fishing. I . too, am sick to my stomach.