This is going to be long so if you live very far from the Chehalis river watershed in S.W. Washington, you may want to scroll down to option 2. There may be other river systems that have a very large number of squawfish, but the Chehalis must have at least 875,576 of them between Adna and Montesano. Maybe more. I fished for them as a boy in the late 40's and they were everywhere as they are now.

I've heard that the predation rate on salmon and steelhead smolts
by squawfish is rather large. If anyone has some hard data on this, it would be helpful. So why don't we:

Option 1: We could possibly have a similar fishery that the Columbia has for them. Granted it could not be the same because BPA has deep pockets to support that kind of bounty. But on a smaller scale it could be supported by one or all of the following:

1. The co-managers could pony up some funds for the smaller bounty. (The Quinaults and WDFW) It would certainly benefit one of those groups. There may be some legal reason WDFW could not participate.

2. The Federal government is all over salmon and steelhead enhancement. There must be some Federal grants that someone from WDFW or in this audience could apply for to support such an undertaking.

3. It would take an action by the legislature but if freshwater licenses were increased by 25 cents, earmarked for squawfish eradication, it would rid the rivers of a lot of those predators.

Problems: Logistics. How does one account for the fish caught?
Where would the check-in sites be? Who would man them? Would it have to be daily?

A little bit of irony: What if the fish caught were ground into a pulp and then rendered into large pellets or bricks and then taken
to the streams where smolts spend their first few months. The squawfish that usually predated the smolts would now be in the lower part of the food chain that would support the smolts.


Option 2: A Sol-Fly squawfish derby. (No one could complain about this.) Some week-end this summer ( it would have to be better than the weather reported at the Forks derby back when) Have a derby on the Chehalis with an entry fee and the top three boats (or whatever) split the money. ) I learned previously that squawfish are a game fish? so a permit would be needed??? Talk about irony!! We could even have a Sol-Fly squawfish T-shirt>

Just some ideas from an old man who grew up calling them squawfish and never made any other connection and still doesn't.