Originally Posted By: Smalma
It may be worth re-stating that we are not only looking at no salmon fishing on Puget Sound and its rivers there will also be no fishing for game fish on any freshwater water areas where Chinook may be found. That means come June first none of the local rivers will open for steelhead or other game fish. It also means that starting likely next week there will be no fishing for bass, perch, cutthroat or other game fish on Lake Washington.

The ban of fishing for game fish in those freshwater areas will remain in place until such time as the State gets "federal ESA take coverage" for potential Chinook encounters. We should soon see a extensive listed of emergency regulations closure posted by WDFW that will remain in place until an optimist mid-summer to potentially several years!

While the Puget Sound marine anglers will have Ling cod , Halibut, flounders and maybe cutthroat to fish for the freshwater folks will have nothing for the duration.

Curt


Wow. The backward thinking that goes into this is the sort that can only come from pure, unadulterated greed driving policy.

Thinking about this logically, if we aren't allowed to fish the rivers because of the potential to impact sensitive fish runs, it means there aren't enough fish making it back to the rivers in the first place. The jacked up part is that NMFS has PLANNED to let ocean fisheries take too much of the available impact. In other words, they are effectively planning to fish endangered runs to a point at which their ability to make escapement depends on returns coming in at projected levels or higher. If the runs come in lower, guess what? That's right, over-fished, before they even make it back to the mainland waters.

Logic also dictates that the Tribes, perennially subject to the same low-holing, should be aligned with sport fishers in wanting ocean quotas reduced. Can't we get together on that?