Ive been really busy with work so I am just going to post up some of the Advisor's sound bites about 2016 NOF for your consumption:


In the aggregate roughly 2/3 of the impacts fall on the tribal side of the ledger.


We agree that there is a conservation issue with our coho and with previous co-manager agreed management guidelines (comp coho) potential fisheries need to be managed to minimize impacts on coho.



The tribal managers seemed to focus on how the non-tribal fishers fished rather than on what the impacts were. In effect attempt to dictate when, where and how non-treaty fisheries occur.



The majority of the conservation burden has been placed on the non-treaty fishers.



The tribal managers position was that only coho impacts could occur in fisheries targeting other species; for example Chinook. Yet for fisheries target game fish in freshwater the tribal position was that those fisheries had to be closed.



The tribal desires on the Skagit that there be a rough balancing of sharing of treaty and non-treaty impacts but were unwilling to adopt the same sharing criteria for those basins where there were significant imbalance on the tribal side.


"Goals of recreational angling leaders have focused on:
* Conservation and escapement of spawning fish first
* Responsible "selective fisheries" designed to select harvestable hatchery fish and release wild fish.
* Meaningful and equitable fisheries across geographical areas and types of fisheries including catch & release fishing, marine and river fisheries.
* Our intent has always been to negotiate fisheries in good faith, respecting co-managers needs and traditions. We don't dictate how tribes conduct their fisheries and don't believe that tribes should dictate how we conduct ours.
* 2016 fisheries discussions broke down because tribes oppose how we conduct fisheries like "marked selective fishing" (in which hatchery fish are kept and wild fish are released) and catch & release fishing which has been a valuable tool for fish recovery in recreation fishing in countless global real world applications, even though the non-tribal fisheries impacted comprehensive wild Coho escapement at a lower rate than proposed tribal fisheries. Our fisheries were rejected by tribal representatives based their own values and not science or conservation, giving explanations like "we don't like the ocular effect" and "we don't like you playing with our food".



Right now, each and every Sportfisherman and woman is Washington state needs to back the department 100%, in support of negotiations of fair and equitable fisheries. We cannot and will not accept anything less.
Email the director, email the commissioners, email the Governor in support of continued negotiations with equitable impacts only, nd if not demand we file for our own permits through NOAA.