Fish4 brains,

What would you have me do? As was said above the rec fleet is at the bottom of the totem pole. I've written the commission, wdfw staff, volunteered to be on their advisory board. Asked for data. They really don't want to hear from me. All responses have been cursory at best. Transparency on WB managment is obviously not a priority.

WDFW is clearly bent on a pre-2000's style of managment for willapa.

Seems likely it will be a full on safe zone like situation in the near future.

The argument that they need to harvest those fish is irrelevant to the main problem which is they make us fish behind the nets for the early part of the chinook run (when the best biters are entering the bay). They can catch all the fish they need to make their quotas in the willapa river and 2N or points more terminal. They just don't want to and WDFW cares more about keeping the commercial fleet happy than they do the rec fleet. Never mind there is more economic value in the scraps left for the rec than there is in the entire commercial take.

rant off.