By the way Gov Locke simply put the $120,000 in his supplemental budget request. It still has to pass in the legislature.

DO YOU WANT TO FISH FOR SOCKEYE SALMON IN LAKE WASHINGTON THIS SUMMER?

Your help is needed to make sure sports anglers are not sitting on the beach this summer when a very large run of sockeye is expected to return to Lake Washington. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has said that without an additional $120,000 they will not allow a sports fishery to take place. Governor Gary Locke has included this amount in his supplemental budget request to the legislature. However, the legislature must agree and include the funds in their budget. Please, immediately, contact your Senator and two representatives to request their support for this funding. You can do this by calling 1-800-562-6000 and ask that a message be given to your legislators requesting they "Support including $120,000 in the supplemental budget for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to manage the 2004 Lake Washington sockeye salmon sport fishery." Under the new system, a toll-free call takes less than two minutes and all you have to provide is your name, address and phone number and give the above message. The receptionist will know your legislators and will send them an e-mail message for you. However, if you have a personal connection with one or more of your legislators, please call them directly. Time is of the essence so call right away.

Also leave the above message for Senator Joseph Zarelli, chair, Senate Ways and Means Committee; and Representative Helen Sommers, chair, House Appropriations Committee.

thanks Mike for reviving this one...I think it is important to clarify that the $120,000 in the Governor's supplemental budget will only finance a 4 or 5 day season and not the 3 week season that the run size would support. This money is for WDFW personnel.

Something is really broken when we pay the WTO protestors a $250,000 settlement for violating their rights to protest , taunt the cops and cost the city millions and businesses even more millions. And we spend millions to build and maintain fancy toilets for the whinos in Pioneer Square to throw up in. But we have to beg to come up with $120,000 so we can have a 4 day fishing season on Lake Washington. A season that will bring in millions to the economy of the region. When was the last time a drunk bum or a WTO protestor brought in a cent to our economy?

Makes me want to SCREAM!!!

If we do not get a season it will be time for another on the water protest. Just like the one that was in Elliot Bay several years ago. Troll as a group with all of our gear in the water, just have NO hooks on the set-ups. That should get some media attention.

You would think in today's world of high technology, the WDF could buy some kind of sonic reader or come up with a statistical algorithim to due this job for years with what they're asserting for in the budget for this year......

C'mon all you brilliant WDFW scientists, can you say SUBSAMPLE Surely you can get one of your biometricians to design a sampling scheme that produces close to 90% confidence by limited randomly sampling of different landing locations over a 4-5 week period - a 100% sample is not necessary here. Neither is a 100% boat count. I'm sorry, but 120K is enough to the job adequately with the luxury of the record sample size that is predicted. And with all the other things that have to "fall off the plate" in todays government funding climate, it will have to be enough, won't it? Quit whining and do your jobs

I would be willing to volunteer myself to do creel samples at the boat ramp in Bellevue if, ofcourse, if I can spare the days.
I'd like to see the oppurtunity for a substantual sport harvest, even if I don't get to take part of it.
Seriously, I think I could spare some time to do some counts at that launch (only).

Hellava idea JD, and I'll sweeten the pot. What say we work out a deal with WDFW to train volunteer samplers, and each sampler gets a fishing trip from one of us as payment? Then all WDFW would be out is supervision and data compilation. Surely they can do that for $120K. And sockeye fishing I can fish 4 easily, and they bite better with more gear in the water anyway, so I'm usually shopping for partners anyhow. Save our tax money, save our fishery, and get some deserving folks a fishing trip - this almost sounds too good to be true I'll contact WDFW directly about it.

Right on. I've beat you to it, as far as contacting the WDFW. But by all means do it.
Got a couple of fishing buddies in the Monte. (right near you spawnout) office that I've talked to in the last week. So far I haven't got any responses concerning my willingness to do this, but we'll see. Then in my case, I got to decide on how much time, and on what days, and if actually volunteering would impact the outcome of a possible Sockeye season on Lk WA this summer. But we won't get a set season soon.
If anybody else is interested, start inquiring with your WDFW office asap.
Just the show of concern my actually help in deciding the outcome in this matter.
And if people are willing to spare some free time, and the powers that be agree that a substantial sport harvest is possible, then maybe we'll get at least one more day of sockeye fishing.

I don't know. I don't think that the state is exactly rich. Libraries are cutting hours, museums are closing on certain days of the week to save money, cops and firemen are being laid off. Plus they have a lot of settlements. Seems that everyone wants to sue the local government over the slightest things, which may not even be their fault.

Could they come up with the money? Probably, if you cut something else. There's no one here that loves fishing more than me. I've been fishing for almost all of my 28 years here. But frankly, I would rather have the libraries stay open all year than have two or three weeks of sockeye fishing that only some can take part in. You can all blame Mr. Eyeman.

Arklier,

You can blame anyone YOU want. I'm personally pointing the finger at the director of the department running the show there. Same guy is screwing up the C. River and the Cowlitz too. The guy wants commercial fishing to get the lions share and is willing to play politics to get it done.

Seems like maybe the fish is rotting from the head down, and not from an initiative that the PEOPLE of WASHINGTON STATE passed. Yea, so Eyeman pushed an initaitve onto the ballot, BIG DEAL. The PEOPLE of WASHINGTON STATE passed the law by a majority vote, and the legislature has come back for more funds in various ways, gas tax increase and user fees come to mind.

If you think that Koenigs is doing a great job, go back to the library and read some history books. Pulleeeze!

Oh, and the libraries? Good God man, have you seen the Taj Mahal that is being built in downtown Seattle that is being called a library? No wonder that we can't can't afford to keep 'em open!

And why, oh why does the Lake W. fishery have to have an exact count of bonked fish? Where else in the state is that actually done? Extrapolation is used everywhere else to pull a number out of the sky that is used to measure sport impact. If it works for the C. River, Sekiu, Puget Sound and elsewhere, what's the difference on the lake?

Difference is the director is too chummy with the commercial fishing interests.

Arklier, no offense intended but I sure get tired of the Eyeman exuse. It's not the reason that the department can't get their act together.

God, I am putting my fire suit on right now....

Nah, no worries. I was more responding to later posts. Of course there's always room for improvement, and the bias that the council shows towards the commercials is frustrating. Who takes most of the fish? Them. Who gets most of the regulations? Us.

But IMHO, griping about the Governor and the amount of money that's been put aside is rather pointless when libraries are closing early and cops and firemen are being laid off. Everyone wants more money to be put up for the Lake Washington sockeye, but where will that money come from? The state and local governments aren't exactly rolling in the dough.

WDFW has had to fork over millions to the general fund from their budget as their share of the bulging state bureaucracy. Our state has the distinction of having the largest number of state employees per capita in the USA if I'm not mistaken. And it is getting larger all the time. I heard today that Gov Locke signed a semi-secret deal with Boeing agreeing to provide 8 or 9 state employees for the exclusive use of Boeing to help handle the permitting processes and other various corporate welfare schemes we came up with to keep Boeing in our state. WDFW will have to pay a share of that too. So the WDFW budget that comes from our license fees for the most part is helping to finance a bunch of other pork barrell stuff....Or should I say you, the taxpayer, are helping to pay for this garbage instead of fishing related things that you thought you were paying for....Get a copy of the Friday Port Townsend commission meeting from a few weeks ago to see what the WDFW has to endure.

This state and their head up the butt politics makes me want to puke! I just can't figure out why in the world they turn their heads and try to ignore us sport fishermen. There is so much money to be made for buinesses off of the sport. Is it not the responsibility of government to try and promote economic growth?
What goes through these peoples mind?
Oh,........ it's what goes through their back pocket!
I did take the time to call and voice my disgust
to my Senator.

well, what i see what we need is a intitiative by the people to allocate all monies from fishing license sales, boat tabs, to be for hatcheries and other fishing realted options.. and another intiiative to appoint proper fish managers, instead of the jokes we have now, some who are in " fish clubs" and they still vote for wild steelhead kill..

Did anyone else get this response?


Dear Mr. Davis:

Thank you for your recent communication to the Washington Department of
Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) Director Jeff Koenings, Senator McAuliffe, and
Representatives O'Brien and Edwards regarding funding the Lake
Washington Sockeye season. Director Koenings has reviewed your
correspondence and asked me to respond.

This is a very popular fishery that takes place when the sockeye run is
of sufficient size, and a harvestable run is expected this year. WDFW
has requested that the Legislature allocate funds to monitor the
anticipated fishery this year. This subject will be addressed by the
Legislature during this 2004 Legislative Session, and we are hoping for a
favorable decision.

We appreciate citizens like you who take the time to write letters of
support. Thank you for your interest in Washington's fishery.

Sincerely,


Lew Atkins
Assistant Director
Fish Program

Even though this is a canned letter that goes to everyone it is still well written and to the point. The point is that governor put a line item in the budget and now the legislature needs to approve it. I don't know if it is in the budget in the typical pork barrell fashion that would require the legislators to approve other stuff they may not agree with in order to get the Sockeye money.

I talked directly with the Fish Program, and what I was told was that they fully intend to have the fishery, that the wording of the request to the legislature was designed to stress the importance of approval of the $120K to their ability to manage the fishery, were aghast that their request was interpreted as holding the fishery hostage and that this was never intended, and that they are indeed working on sampling schemes to allow full sport allocation within the sampling budget. They also said that the preliminary adult sockeye return estimate was at this point 450K, but that if it was more they would still be able to sample properly to allow full utilization. Sounded pretty sincere and reasonable to me. Maybe we over-reacted a little here - like that could ever happen - and if so I will be the first to apologize

I never thought that WDFW was playing games necessarily but I think Koenings is savvy to the game of budgets in Olympia. If the Sokeye fishery is a bargaining chip in the big game to get money for WDFW then fine...Just don't play the game too long and get alot of the constituents mad. The legislators for the most part are really undereducated about fisheries issues and probably know alot more about all the lawsuit settlements sucking the budgets dry.

By the way I think a figure of 450,000 is very conservative for a run size estimate.

What size red hooks do you use for sockeye . GI JOES has Gamakatsu's on sale right now.
Thanks for the help
Dan