I understand they get there share also, But starting earlier of us and not at the same time is a joke. I couted 72 pots from Pt Richmond north to the Southworth ferry dock, Just on the west side of the water. Doesn't seem like many for an area as big as it is. But at the Ollahla ramp he was of-loading his catch. 1/4 garbage can of red rock pinchers and 6 garbage cans of Dungee's, I used a dollar to measure one and it was 1/4 inch short. I waited until they went for another can. He told me he has caught about 4700 crabs since it opened and was on track to eclipse his mark of 8500 last season. His first in this area. I mentioned some looked short, He said close enough, They will be flash frozen and shipped to China. I sent a similar e-mail to both the Puyallop fishieries and WDFW. Looks like area 11 will be about like it was last summer. A joke, an area I fished for years and limits were common, Last year it was a barren waste land, struggled to get 3 combined limits in July before I pulled the plug and went to area 9 for single day adventures. It will not be 50-50% in area 11 again this year. It will be depleted before we start.... Was scouting to see if I was heading north this opener, Or crabbing close to home. It's a Shame. Area 9 here I come.........

All men are equal, but some men are more equal than others.

HA! Sat on the beach last week and watched tribal crabbers working over 8-2 and also running around Possession into MA 9. Part of the problem is that the northern portion of the Tulalip U&A area is closed due to soft shell conditions until maybe this week - if it hasn't already opened up. That puts more pressure on those areas open to the Tulalips.

While frozen crab may be on its way to China it is well known that much of tribal as well as crab caught by non-tribal commercials is being shipped live by air to China. The ex vessel price is close to $5.00/# so a lot of incentive for the commercial fishermen.

And now I know the origin of those red rock claws I noticed a couple years ago at Uwajimaya in Seattle. No surprise there.

Pots off Mukilteo over the weekend.

This makes me so freaking mad I can spit. I'm sick of this crap.

What should make you even more mad is the amount of tickets given out to the recreational crabers every year for undersize, soft shell, over limit, they are what give the indians fuel to blame us for all the problems and allow them to take what they do.

GBL - To suggest that anything other than the Boldt/Rafeedie decisions are what "allows" the Indians to take what they do is at best simply inaccurate. Furthermore, your assertions rely on information you have not provided.

On 3 Feb 2012 Deputy Chief Cenci and Rich Childers made a (required) presentation to the Commission documenting the 2011 P.S. dungy season. Included in that presentation was a slide setting forth results from both the 2011 marine emphasis patrols and bios' offload site surveys and also compared them to the 2010 results. Here is the information from that slide:

Category...................... Enforcement.................. Offload Site Survey

Possession Undersized.......8% (10%).................... 4% (11%)
Possession Female........... 0.9% (0.8%)................. 0% (<1%)
CRC* in Possession.......... N/A..............................98%
CRC Violation**.............. 21% (24%)................... 18% (21%)
Exceeding daily limit......... 1.5% (2%).................... N/A

CRC = Catch Record Card
CRC Violation is "fail to record or inaccurate"

A couple of my observations:

1. The officers on emphasis patrol are very adept at targeting problems areas as well as suspicious behavior Simply put, their "contacts" are not random and their results are not indicative of the recreational crabbing community as a whole. This "reality" was pointed out by the State auditor's office in its performance review of WDFW's management of the P.S. Dungeness fishery.

2. Even with targeted contacts the percentage of female and over limit violations is quite small in my opinion. Note the results of the bios' creel survey.

3. Undersized remains an issue but earlier, more detailed information has most of those undersized crab as being of a size indicating that the crabber measured point to point - now, whether that is simply an error is conjecture but I have personally discussed this with folks who truly believed it was correct to measure point to point. This is where our ongoing educational efforts can be of value.

4. As for the continuing collaborative educational effort between WDFW and various organizations to include PSA and CCA one might attribute the decreased violation rate from 2010 to 2011 to that effort.

5. Nothing in there about soft shell; nothing at all.

6. The biggest villain is the CRC itself and the failure of crabbers to IMMEDIATELY reduce their catch and record those legal crab being retained - before resetting a pot or heading away from the site.

So, there are the facts. If it supports your perspective then so be it.

Thanks Larry, you made the point well.
With over 250,000 recreational licenses issues to non-trible crabers, those number result in huge numbers of tickets.
Again, my point was, and still is, as long as the recreational crabers make the news with illegal actions, the indian will use it against us and it has worked for them many times over the years.
I never have condoned anything the Indian do and most the know me will say I am a bit of a pain in the [Bleeeeep!] with the indians when I can.

Several very strong points made. You cant make inference from non- random sample, that is a big one. Enforcement data does not reflect anything other than the selected target participants of the enforcement activity.

I wish we had the money to do a random sample of all fishers that would reflect the general situation. Otherwise the data available are no more than junk.

The current card system is also junk, nothing more than a revenue generator because of the unnaddressed reporting bias.

I will repeat: The marine patrol violation numbers are the result of targeted enforcement and are not representative of the community at large.

Furthermore, they are purportedly observed violations and not actual tickets issued.

And, frankly, it was the non-tribal crabbers whose ox was gored by the new crab management policy. To the extent that there was a resulting drop in non-tribal commercial harvest the tribes may well have benefitted from lower supply resulting in higher prices (however, this would be most at play when and where their seasons overlap).

I crab with the same 250,00 rec fisherman every crab season, why can't we just add afew more Tribal fisherman to the mix and start at the same time, As we are all created equal. And there will be no more conflict then there is with the other 250,00 crabbers. And most Tribal fishers are still crabbing after we start with no more conflict..... Lets just all have the same playing field. Not us getting in for the leftovers... I said nothing about citations, And the Sate doesn't bother with the Tribes besides. It's about 50% split.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Larry B, you did NOT 'Splain all of the "Problems with that Math Impaired" Dawg & Pony Show, shame shame shame. First off yah didn't tell GBL that the columns did NOT even add up on the scofflaw violation head count. And He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Name still has NOT corrected it and presented said corrected spreadsheet to the Commission as he promised almost a year ago. Hence a piece of my signature line until he does. Second and probably the most damning of that damn presentation was the measurement methodolgy used that was different for the Ossifers on the water, and the shellfish biologists at the ramps. It seems that Cenci/Bjork's Ossifers used what us scofflaws use, i.e., the cheap old Danielson's Plastic "Tongs" for lack of a better term. However, the Shellfish Biologists used micrometers to be able to get within a millimeter accuracy. Here's where it really gets ridiculous, a full 90% of the Shellfish Biologists tote for undersized crabs was in the 1 to 3 millimeter range. So folks really understand that significance, 3 millimeters is slighly less than 3/16's of an inch. When the Danielson factory was asked if their "Tongs" were that accurate they firmly stated "Hell No!!!!!"

When Deputy Chief Cenci was informed of the Measurement Methodolgy Mix problem, all that could be heard was muttering. Needless to say, they will NOT be mixed in the future.

And as always Larry B & Ranty M we still have NOT received any accounting for the expenditures by all of WDFW of the Highly Restricted Sports Crab Catch Record fund. I'm betting on Shellfish Program Seminars (vacation trips to Cabo in the winter).

Thanks John. I alluded to the measurement inconsistency on point No. 3 which can be attributed to equipment and/or methodology.

I am not trying to say there are not some bad apples operating under the cover of recreational crabbers nor am I trying to say that your "average" Joe Blow can't make a mistake especially where water conditions can make accurate measurements difficult. It happens and is more like to happen as now that we are required to reduce catch and record before moving on. But the stats do not seem to support widespread abuse in my opinion.

The other aspect of the stats presented by LE is whether one crabber who is contacted can cause multiple violations to be annotated thereby skewing the results.

It just seems that there are far more LE resources expended riding herd on the recreational efforts relative to the impact of violations than there is on the commercial side where several egregious violations have had tens of thousands of pounds of crab harvested and put into the commercial market place without fish tickets meaning those crab were never counted against the commercial (tribal or non-tribal) harvest.

By the way, in my opinion each of these dedicated accounts should include a mandate that a report be issued annually documenting the status of the account to include the specifics of expenditures. And, frankly, I would like to see oversight by the Advisory Group - possibly to include authority to approve or disapprove. But that goes to the whole issue of transparency not only in the Department but Government as a whole.

I was wondering when I would elicit an AuntyMism.......

Of course, one of the criteria would also be that said advisory group meet at least once a year. Oh, I think that is part of the advisory group operation rules already. Darn.

And speaking of advisory groups there was something about member appointments being for three years. I wonder what happens when it is over three years between advisory group meetings???? Is everyone automatically off the Group hence no quorum?

Anyway, just throwing out some thoughts.

And in case you are wondering why the fuss about money there were 233,265 summer catch record cards issued in 2011. Assuming the same number will be issued in 2012 and that each is purchased at the full rate of $8.25 (some will in fact be to juveniles or at a reduced rate for 3 day licenses) the revenue just from the CRC (and not including a portion of the shellfish permit which will be $16.30 if purchased as a stand alone) will be roughly $1,945,000. Wouldn't you like to know how that dedicated account money is being spent each year?

Maybe retirement is getting to me. Tried the tomato thing AuntyM, but before I could even get them planted the deer found them on the porch. Cheeky little buggers!!

Then I had the new twin fawns prancing around the back yard. So cute. Then I looked at the tomatoes. I am, among other things, convoluted re: backyard wildlife in the burbs. Guess there is always the hummingbird feeder.

Nothing above expains WHY the Tribes get so much more time BEFORE the recreationals? I'm tired of getting seconds. Why not let them in first, but only a couple of days, instead of weeks. The days we don't crab, let them go back. For instance M11, opens 7-1. Let them in 6-27 for 4 days then we get 2, 1st and 2nd. Then alternate groups of days during the season, so no conflict occurs? At least it could prevent them from cleaning out certain areas and potentially offer better results for the recs when it opens for us! Thoughts?

Remember that when dealing with the co-managers there simply is not just one entity with whom to negotiate and each of the tribes considers its own fishers' interests. As we know each tribe establishes its own seasons and from what I have gathered they prosecute their fisheries to a large degree based upon market price. If the market price is down they may put off fishing unless, of course, they have a contract with a buyer who is selling it for live transport to China. And, of course, it is always better to be the first harvester on the water!

It also seems unlikely that any recreational crabber driven effort to have WDFW pursue this idea would get little traction given the resources expended dealing with the turmoil resulting in the crab management overhaul. That is just my perspective.

Remember, too, that the Tribes determine what is "wise use" of their share of the resource, be it fish or crab or???

If, for example, a tribe has a market for soft shelled crab they can pursue it so long as there is not a conservation issue.

This cuts both ways. WDFW has determined that the best use for Chinook is to hook and line juveniles in saltwater. The tribes, generally, take them at or near maximum size as returning adults.

To put a very fine point on this statistical discussion and it's ensuing irony, WDFW LE actually keeps stats on Commercial Violations. I have a copy of a spreadsheet that was reluctantly provided to me that itemizes their violations per year from 2007 through 2011. I would like to cite just One Violation by a commercial crabber in just one year. That Commercial Scofflaw was caught with 10,000 pounds of illegal crab. That is just one violation in just one year. Then doing some simple math, divide WDFW's average crab weight of 1.3 pounds into that 10,000 pounds of Scofflaws and you get 7,692 illegal crabs. Now take that POS Spreadsheet that He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named presented to the F&W Commission and swore to the "Factual" that showed 3,553 illegal crabs in all Marine Catch Areas. Remember folks we are comparing roughly 236,000 sports crabbers to just one Commerical Scofflaw. It gets real scarey when you total up all of the Poundage of Illegal Commercial Scofflaw violations and then do the 1.3 pounds average division to get a Crab Head Count.

The bottom line here folks is that He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named and his minions have a long and infamous history of maligning sports crabbers before the F&W Commission and the Legislature (both Houses). I think Larry B can relate one of those events that both of us attended and testified before. I have yet to discovery (and I have done due deligence) any testimony/presentation/Power Points/Voodoo Witch Chants regarding anything negative about Commercial Crabbers/Crabbing, or for that matter the same goes for Tribal/Commercial Crabbers. And we all still remember Odd-Todd's experience chasing down a Tribal Thief stealing sports carbber pots that the Prosecuting Attorney of Jefferson County swept under the rug due to her accepting large donations from that Tribal Interests (check it out in the legislatures own Political Donation Database).

Bottom line, keep electing the same Pungent Sound Idiots and you'll keep getting the same stinky rotten results.

????