It is amazing how much this "agency" has grown. ONce B Frank told me that if you hang around and cause enough fuss with the State sooner or later they will put you to work just to shut you up.

Anyway just keep making noise . it can't hurt .

http://www.nwifc.org/aboutus/staff.asp

You have no idea how true the first three sentences of your post are.. and its not just the various game depts.. its the sportsmen as well... same folks that can't even get something as simple as WSR passed want to fight with the tribes now about allocations...

Rally.

Shut down I-5 at Olympia with rigs and trailers. It will certianly get someones attention.

Rally.

Shut down I-5 at Olympia with rigs and trailers. It will certianly get someones attention.

You are right Kev, I'm with ya. I will be sending out a couple of e-mails today. I can't participate in anything this weekend (work sucks) but if some one here organizes something after that I will participate.

The key is finding out where those fish are ending up. Restaurants, markets, overseas? The first two could be put on notice that they face bad publicity for selling illegally caught fish. In my mind that's exactly what these are "illegally caught fish". Hey a bumper sticker idea..."don't buy illegally caught fish". Might make people think and query before they purchase.

Who were the morons that approved this season with no quota???Unbelievable!!
Heads should roll in whatever dept. based a no quota season on assumptions.

Just wondering how they were illegally caught when it was a no quota open season??

I said in my mind they were illegally caught. Since they aren't governed by our laws no amount is illegal per say even when there is a "quota".

Sounds to me like the tribes should be done for a while as the sporties and commercials go after there's this summer and fall.Good luck,
STRIKE ZONE

P.S. Boycot Neah Bay this summer.

I called the State yesterday and a man named Phil Anderson called me back today but I was out. Does any one know who he is? LB

I think that Phil is one of the state reps at the NOF meetings that are held with the public. If I remember right he is high up in WDFW on salmon.

We should also all remember that they (the Makah) jacked up the slip rates on all of the guides who aren't native at the marina built with Federal? dollars last year. I could be remembering this wrong but I'm pretty sure I'm right.
I'm all for them whacking another whale but cheating on the king quota and treating others badly doesn't sit well with me.
As I said on another post I'll fish Neah this year if it's open but I will run my boat there from Seiku or Snow and not stop in Neah Bay Harbor.

They didn't follow through with the threatened increase last year but I hear that it is on their table again this year.

You know what really kills me about this whole thing??? Not one peep from the WDFW. I check the WDFW website daily for news and updates (so I can keep abreast of all the closures and such to make sure I am in 100% compliance with the law)... although this whole debacle is BIG NEWS to our angling community, nobody at the WDFW has the sack to make a statement about this mess.

I have some connections in Olympia and I am trying to get a list of representatives/senators that are histoically sympathetic to the sport fishing community. As soon as I get some names I will post them here, and hopefully we will find someone to champion our views and be our voice.

Big Salmon Resort is dead to me!

...Maybe I've been watching to much Sopranos...

Well the Makahs are obviously reading all the bad press they are getting. Now they are saying the 20,000 figure is wrong and is much lower.....OH MY GOD!!!! I knew this admission in the beginning would cause them some grief and fully expected the back peddling we are now seeing. They are totally tuned in on the publicity they get...Shoould have thought of that before you thumbed your noses at us.

WDFW like many others are waiting to gather all the facts before responding. I suspect we will see an attempt to diffuse this by minimizing it and sweeping it under the rug. How the overharvest affects the NOF process remains to be seen.

I would suffice it to conclude that our fisheries are being irresponsibly managed with far too much deference to the tribes. The state of Washington has made some bad pacts with the devil and the sports fishers of the state should not always be the ones to get slapped with restrictions because of this lopsided management style.

This outrage needs to stay an outrage by the way. The outraged sportsman usually gets over it in a day or two and we are back to business as usual until we get hosed again and then we are outraged again for a few days. We need to stay vigilant and keep this stuff on the front page until the system is fixed.

I really hope that all of my fellow fishermen will remember this action during the season. I would like to see a complete boycott of the Makah Nation. Let them stay on the rez...... It would be nice if no one was there to pay rez entrance fees, boat ramp fees, moorage fees, buy food at their one cafe, etc.... Just don't show up. Know what I mean? But guys, remember not everyone in Neah Bay is out there catching fish. There are some really great people out there that don't fish. Lets just see if we can bring the poachers to justice.

One way to stay "outraged" as Grandpa so rightly states is to make reservations every week..and cancel them! Use your VISA they warrant each purchase.

Boycot Neah Bay

We should all dump our $ at Sekiu and PA and Sooke

JD

I have heard from a reliable source that the number is actually much, much larger than 20,000 salmon since the report on the 10th of Jan.


The Makah have a fleet of approximately 15 small trawlers and on a good day the each get 100 or so and on a bad day about 50. If you where to just average this you would think that 75 for each boat each day would be fair. This season and also last season for them have been greater than average.

15 boats per day @ 75 fish each = 1,125 fish per day “ probably on the conservative side”

They had approximately 20,000 as of Jan 10th of this year.

This is Feb 2nd and there has been 22 days since then and from the sounds of it they are still trolling.


So 22 day @ 1,125 per day = 24,750 more salmon


For a Grand Total of 44,750 Salmon at an average of 75 per boat.

If an average of 100 fish where caught per day, a very lilkley average for this year, per boat there would be a Grand Total of 53,000 Salmon caught to date.

OH CRAP !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thats going to hurts

Thanks for the report JR. Excellent letter, Grandpa. This whole thing may turn into the "watergate" of Washington fish management. Something so blatantly unjust that it will demand action!