WDFW needs money?????? mmmmmmm, how about selling off some of their "small parcels of land"??????

Its hard to get a printout of WDFW lands but I'm aware of one small piece that the land owner adjacent to said land, wants to buy.....hes been told no, for more than 20 years.

Instead of increase fees.....how about decreasing WDFW personnel thus costs?????

The following is a example of personnel increases/decreases since 1995:

1995------1592
1997------1655
1999------1505
2001------1717
2003------1626
2005------1670
2007------1601
2009------1628
2011------2072

I know the easy answer is "raise fees" to cover short falls in the money needs.......As I see into the future, and State needs for funding of the "McCleary case" Education reform and the "culvert case" filed and won by the tribes, it will be necessary to change the way State funded agencies do business. Hint, relative to WDFW......shouldn't creative new positives that weren't there in past.

Isn't that what the gist of the open letter is directed towards? These organizations would support higher fees if there was a priority towards recreational fishing? By priority I mean additional opportunity.

There would have to be a pretty good reason to try to sell property. Personally, I think the state needs to keep its property. Additionally, a lot of state land purchases are tied back to federal funding - Pittman-Robertson, Dingall-Johnson, or Wallup-Breaux. The state can be penalized or have to pay back those dollars if they dispose of or transfer said properties.

As far as the employee growth, it would appear that the growth has been in every program except law enforcement. In 1994, there were 165 commissioned officers. In 2014, the number has dropped to 123. The state population has grown by 2.1 million in the past 20 years. In 1994, there was 1 officer per 29497 residents. In 2014, it is 1 per 56788. Currently, there is 1 officer per 12393 licenses. I suspect the ratio of other LE agencies officers to population or licenses is probably much lower.

I guess I look at those two quotes as saying don't even think of raising rec fees unless those fees directly and only benefit rec users.

Not go ahead and raise rec fees

By looking at the bipartisan support by the many sponsors of each bill in their perspective chamber, combined with over 65% that supported SB 5844 at the senate committee public hearing, shows the enthusiasm that has stirred through the state legislative process in Olympia this session.

On some of the bills we have run, they were tweaked between sessions to garner more support. Have you approached Blake to see what would be palatable to him so that he might support a run next year? Worth a try. What is the worst he'll say?

I've also seen the same bill trotted out time and again, with the sponsoring legislator oblivious to that bill's chance of passing, similar to how Don Quixote tilted at windmills.

Best of luck next year.

Was this his "Axe Max" moment? The message for harvest reform will build from here. :-)

Common knowledge would dictate that bills submitted are tweaked. If I would contact Blake, it would be purely curiosity based on my part, because I’m sure that those organizations supporting this bill would be light years ahead of your suggestion.

How well did it work out this year?

About as well as a issue does first time out without prep. This approach is usually used to see how much support ( and opposition ) is really present. It also starts the process of flushing out folks who say they support something ( like harvest reform ) but in reality work to disrupt its chances of success. I am sure you know how the flushing folks out bit works DF as it is going on still, in this thread.

Next time it will do better. I have been involved in two major pushes got one & lost one. The winner took three tries because the second time out the Governor line itemed the funding mechanism out so it was reboot time. We had Senator Owen leading the charge and he was the committee chair and went to the wall. In fact we were on the ropes about to die in Rules when then Senator Paul Conner used his last "pull" to get us out of committee.

You need legislators with vision and determination leading the charge which will come about in the future.

Found it interesting that four of the folks that screwed up SB 5844/ HB 1660 chances of passing were Democrats: Chance, Hatfield, Ranker and Blake. That's not something I'd forget come election time if they were my district legislators. In the meantime, they'd get the chance to answer some pointed questions at their coffee clatches or town meetings.

As far as the bills being "poorly written"; there's always naysayers out there who will slap that criticism on ANY legislation or initiative that they oppose. Frankly, the whole bunch of naysayers on SB 5844/HB 1660 reminds me of the "Knights who say, NI!".

"Poorly written" is often a euphemism for "Doesn't say what I like".

Fish on...

Todd

We might have to wait for election time. Chair Blake sitting on a popular bi partisan bill and Sen. Hatfield already has been under fire for not reporting sexual abuse by a family member. Have to wait and see.
I’ll sure be there to remind those at election time.

Nice to see you go there Louie. That's awesome.

Personally I would love to see no gill netting, cowboy or Indian, anywhere in Washington State. My ability to impact or influence the treaty fisheries is zero.

Eliminating or drastically curtailing an established historical non treaty commercial fishery through legislation without respect to the financial impact on the families who have invested in boats, permits, and gear so you and I can catch more fish is irresponsible, callous and cold.

You also need to remember not to be a dick to politicians when working on a bill because the next session, when you need some support you might just not get it. Blake and Hatfield aren't going away soon.

Todd hit the nail on the head when he talked about perception when related to a bill being good or bad. Commercials think 1660 and its companion bill sucked. Lots of sports fishermen think it was the best bill ever. Others of us thought it was incomplete, like me.

Personally, I'd suggest buying back a few permits and bow pickers each year. This legislation would have driven down the value of the existing permits. It would have driven down the value of the boats these permit holders have, and it would have done the same to the value of their gear. It would also have an immediate impact on the family incomes of these fishermen and the businesses that market their fish. I would suggest you think about that in the next run. That would give the sportsmen something in return for their increased fees, don't you think?

Hope that helps.

The Daily News opinion piece reflect the delusional perspective that if only we fix the environmental problems and make the pie bigger, we wouldn't have to have these allocation fights. Might sound nice, but it ain't real. The pie can be made bigger, but only slightly bigger, and never big enough to satiate an ever-increasing human population. Any realistic analysis recognizes that just like every other natural resource on the planet, it comes down to ever more people fighting over fewer remaining scraps. That's natural and logical. I cringe that so many don't understand it.

The supply of salmon is limited. It's been limited for over a century, and is only going to be more limited in years to come. An intelligent society would allocate any surplus production to the highest and best use, generally defined as greatest economic good and or providing the greatest good to the greatest number.

Reserving any surplus salmon in Gray's Harbor to less than two dozen non-treaty gillnetters at the expense of a more socially and economically beneficial recreational fishery when there is a federally protected treaty gillnet fishery to more than fulfill market place salmon needs is batshit crazy by any rational analysis. The existing economic benefit to a few non-treaty gillnetters is not an entitlement to the public resource. I don't understand why Dogfish defends their interest unless they are relatives or they owe his bank money. Businesses fail and succeed all the time. The same Dogfish that opposed the bail out of banks deemed "too big to fail" thinks it makes sense to publicly subsidize a gillnet fishery that has outlived its utility. I'm not understanding this.

I wonder how Blake would react to a bill drafted to ease, but not eliminate, the pain to his publicly subsidized gillnetters.

I'm not opposed to commercial fishing. I'm not even opposed to gillnet fishing. I am opposed to allocating public trust resources to low value outcomes when higher value alternatives are available.

Sg

SG

I appreciate your opinion.

What would be the backlash to the State be for effectively outlawing what is a current lawful fishery? "But we're going let these other guys fish it instead so we can make more money."

Isn't it really similar to an eminent domain issue? These fishermen own something, a permit, and they have a definable economic value, an income stream supported by tax returns. When the State takes something of value from a citizen so that they can convert it to what the State deems to be the highest and best use, they are required to pay that citizen for exercising eminent domain. The permits go a step further, because there is essentially a contract between the State and the fishermen. As long as there is sufficient escapement you can fish. The escapement exists but the State, through legislative action, says no, we'll let these guys fish for them instead so the State and its citizens are better served.

Equating a family run business to a mega bank being bailed out is a bit ridiculous, don't you think? You're saying these fishermen need to suck it up and deal with it?

While I bank lots of commercial fishermen, none of my clients or relatives hold commercial gill net licenses that I am aware of.

And my method would reduce the number of gill net permits.

Buy back of com licenses and equip would be a cheap solution. Did that with the troll fleet long ago, and people got over it. Sorry fellas, times have changed. Go find another job. Oh, wait. Most of you already have another job.

Most of the fishermen I bank fish in multiple fisheries. Crab in the winter. Longline in the spring. Troll salmon and tuna in the summer. Are they multiple jobs, or one? What about the school teachers who hold a summer job, do you hold a grudge against them too?

How would any of you feel if your job, fishing with your family, was under attack so someone else could fish with their family for fun? You can't really be that heartless, can you?

Until you supply a solution to mitigate this issue this line of thinking will lose.