WDFW has published the proposed marine rule change proposals: http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/regulations/rule_proposals/2017-2018/.

Of 66 total change proposals only 11 were recommended to go forward. Of those 11 only three were from the public out of 58 having been submitted by the public.

Please take the time to review all of them and offer your comments. My opinion is that many of the "Do Not Recommend" responses are more about maintaining status quo (that is, it is difficult to overcome Agency inertia) than legitimate justifications.

These will go into effect next year (2017/2018) and we won't have another opportunity to effect change until 2019 for the 2020/2021 season.

Some of the reasons for the recommend denials seem a bit incomplete. In one, a person asks that the North Bay be open year round. The department responds by saying that "seasonal use of this access is largely associated with legal agreements entered into by to WDFW and is therefore restricted to a limited opening during the current shellfish season." I took a quick look, and sure enough the department owns most of the access. The city of Tacoma owns part of the walk way to the water, but if that is an issue, the state could just move the walk way over to the northwest section of the access, which they own. It is unclear as who actually owns all of the bay bottom, as the none of the maps I can easily access does not show an owner, the portions that do appear to be owned by the state. It is possible they are owned by someone else, but even if so, the state could be clearer in their answer.
Under the request to allow the retention of unclassified marine life they state it is a cautious move to protect specific areas from depletion. It seems clear the rule is an overkill, as they could restrict harvest in these areas. In addition they do not seem to have done any study to justify the closure. Annoying to say the least.

would sure be nice to legally use pile worms and other marine worms for bait again. But, as stated above, the WDFW's reason(s) for refusing further consideration of such a rule change is annoying.

I placed a call to WDFW this morning to discuss a proposal I submitted and for which the language supporting recommendation to not move it forward was not at all related to the proposal. I had also submitted a written comment to that effect yesterday. Surprise, when I called the Staff was already aware of the written comment; point being someone is actually reading the comments!

So, if you have an issue with any of the WDFW responses it may well be worth your effort to make a written comment.

As for my issue they promised to review it as well as their response. Whether that results in a recommendation of support is yet to be determined but at least I will expect an on point basis for rejection to which I can respond.

As to the marine invertebrates I was in attendance during testimony and the subsequent Commission vote and there was no discussion about depletion concerns being for localized areas. The supporting discussion was that they were protecting all areas because of depletion concerns ignoring that the majority of Puget Sound beaches are in private ownership with little to no harvest versus what occurs on public beaches.