Good call, B. Gray. Like you pointed out, though, not all bills die there. I, too, am contacting each and every rules committee member, and my own representatives, too, just in case it gets out of there. With all the high profile legislation out there this session and the concern that there is just not enough time to get it all done, bills that are controversial and minor, as I'm sure this bill is viewed, will not get much time. I guess that cuts both ways. It may get out fast, but if it looks like a fight over a minor bill, it would be easier just to dump it and move on to the important stuff.
In your letters to legislators, remember to ask this question. If Harriet Spanel and the Wildcat Native Bonkers are so concerned about the viability of the native steelhead on the Sauk and Skagit, why then did they both try so hard to get the Grandy Creek hatchery built in spite of an obviously poorly done environmental impact statement and clear evidence that the hatchery would have a detrimental effect upon those same native runs?
The answer is clear; WSC wants more fish to catch. So do we all. However, WSC feels that if there are not going to be more hatchery fish, and they can't bonk all spring, then no one else should get to fish, either, especially those nasty old fly fishermen who opposed the hatchery.
I hope that the legislators can come to that conclusion all on their own, but I'd sure like them to ask Harriet during any hearings or debates and see what she has to say. I haven't received a response to a letter I sent her asking that question. Don't really expect to. However, she'll have to answer other legislators who ask during debates.
Keep up the fight, and remind them that there are a lot more sportsmen who aren't in the WCS then there are in the club, and that we all vote, too.
Fish on...
Todd.