This post is a related follow-on from a previous post regarding WDFW and Elliot Bay. My own personal WDFW "gripe" concerns the recent Lake Wa. sockeye fishery. This year's run was about as large as it can get and out of all that the WDFW could only muster up one long weekend worth of fishing.

Given the natural ups and downs of the run size, a result is that we will only be able to fish about 3 weekends every DECADE with the present escapement rules and to me this is a ridiculous wasting of a resource that they do not have a thing to do with anyway. The entire subject would be more palatable if the WDFW would explain, just once, how they arrive at their catch estimates and escapement needs. I did look at the raw fish catch numbers from the south Lake Washington boat launches. I came up with something like 3500 fish tallied, so how does that number get turned into 38,000 fish caught? It is crazy math for sure to calculate that Lake Wa. private property moored boats caught 34,500 fish while people who used those boat ramps caught 3500.

This fishery is not natural, either, it was introduced with the locks, so wild stock restrictions should not be in effect here.

I have asked the WDFW about these inconsistancies in number counting and have been left to go figure.

Try writing an email directly to Phil Anderson and Pat Pattillo, see if you get an answer from them, and let us know.

Phil Anderson: anderpma@dfw.wa.gov
Pat Pattillo: pattiplp@dfw.wa.gov

-N.