Soooooo, you're saying I may as well sell my boat if I like catching (as opposed to merely fishing) crab and salmon in the Sound?

DON'T SELL!
DON'T LET THEM WIN!
FIGHT!

Click Here: Stop the BS

As long as we continue to have an expanding human population, the piece of the pie available to each of us will shrink. Human demands will increase. Ultimately, that is the problem. If we don't deal with that one it doesn't matter what we do otherwise.

Your right, it's all part of the impact.
The operative word: WE.
And unless WE are ALL at the table working on solutions, our fisheries will continue to suffer.

As long as Commercial interests (both tribal and non-tribal) are the priority, our fisheries will be managed as a commodity to be taken down to the last. No commercial interest will leave money in the water for anyone else...it's just greed!

A couple members here and I pulled three at dusk near Apple tree p.t. Six crab out and six empty beer cans in....we laughed are asses off all the way to Shilshoe. Made up for no Kings.

I think we heard you the first time.
Too bad you, and your alias don't know how to crab and resort to theft.
The population of area 13 Dungeness is in a small area and has been hammered both by tribal and recreational.
I realize the larvae swim around, but I think the majority of area 11 crab have always trickled in from the North.
Don't get the early opener, I guess it's too catch our share of crab that are not there.

I have to agree, theft is unacceptable. There are right ways and there are wrong ways to fight. If you think the system is unfair, then fight the system. By breaking the law, you actually work against yourself and everyone else who is trying to bring about change.

Things can be twisted and used...look at river closures "to reduce gear conflicts".

So. Went out today (opener, 7/1) in MA10 where I have harvested dozens and dozens and dozens over the many years I have crabbed there. Not one dungeness crab. And I mean not a female, not a short male, zero, zip, nada. And I caught maybe a dozen or so red rocks. Never seen this lack of life in my pots before now and I have been doing this here for about 25 years. WDFW Bob Sizemore writes- "Crabbing should be good from opening day all the way through the end of the summer season, although much of the catch south of Seattle this year will be red rock crab."

Yeah. You could say that...

Don Velasquez told our NOP PSA chapter a couple of weeks ago that the crab population surveys overall are down about 30% compared to last year.

Been crabbing the last few days in MA 11. No male dungies. Hardly any female dungies. Lots of big red rock crabs.

But, there are plenty of crab out there so buy your license!.

One "problem" with wild natural resources is that the populations naturally fluctuate. Highs and lows. Humans don't like variation. We want every trip to be about "the same as it always was".

Pulled 8 heavily baited pots today in A10, dropped on our GPS waypoints of productive spots from years past.

ZERO KEEPERS

3 total sublegal males, and a half dozen rock crab. Sure seems like something is very very wrong.

Soaked 6 pots 6 hrs on the area 9-10 line. 6 keepers and only on one pull did we really see numbers of smallies and females. Talked to many others with similar results. Last year had 4 limits with 6 pots on the 1st pull, and in 3 pots. Threw back another 2 limits, and was done in 3hrs. The numbers I saw yesterday have me worried for the future.

Why worry?? The on-the-ball managers have a good idea about the current numbers, are looking at what controls them, and making management modifications even as we type.

That's what top shelf managers do, right?

Makes ya wonder about pre-season surveys, open commercial seasons and blanket under enforced tribal fishing.

But what the hell, we are ONLY recreational fishermen. It's just a sport, right. We don't REALLY lay out any MONEY for what we do. Heck, we're just in the way of the adults....

"It's great to just get out"

WDFW New Motto!

WDFW Bob is wrong! Only 6 keepers in 24 hours, 4 pots in my money spot on the opener! No smaller males or females. Reports from the folks I talked to trying varied areas in A-10 were 1-2 keepers at best. Populations sure look way down. From what I see I would welcome a closure.

If you've been around long enough (and I qualify) you've experienced those naturally occurring swings. Fair enough.

Yes, expectations are a bitch when not realized. In the case of crab I will offer that WDFW has alluded to those natural swings but at the same time said they would stay the course that all legal males can be removed every year and still have a healthy population. Is it time for a reality check??

Compounding that situation is the perpetuation of those expectations with less than realistic data. How did we see last year's MA 11 combined tribal and Rec harvest shake out at 25% of the agreed upon total harvest number?

As I recall the managers' primary tool is a running 5 year average so, again, if that works on a reasonably stable or increasing biomass then great. But it clearly is the wrong tool on the down swing. Reality check??

Finally, we did okay in 8-2 on Saturday but Sunday was considerably slower. Way, way too early for a big dropoff in success rates but I am afraid that is what will be occurring. I don't think any of our crab were over 7 inches and while there was a fair mix of undersized males and females the total number of crab in the pots seemed down from prior years (probably been on the slide for several years).

For better or for worse, recreational fishing and hunting are managed based on "opportunity". Consistently, users say that their primary reason for going out is to be outdoors, with friends, etc. When surveyed, harvest is always down the list.

The measure that is always used for the value of rec use is cost per trip. "I spent $X to fish salmon today." That is the measure.

Rec use was never designed as subsistence; the taking home of harvest id the cherry on the sundae. Many of the limits, especially gamefish possession limits, were designed to "spread" the harvest over more license holders.

Now, if we want to change that then we need to really get organized and lobby. Perhaps a license comes with a money-back guarantee that you will harvest 10 salmon, 1 halibut, 15 crab, and so on. I think that a lot of folks do look at hunting and fishing as major meat source. This is not the way management has worked and if we want to change that there is a ton of work to do.

The only seafood my household eats is what we catch. It's amazing spending time on the water with the wife and kiddo passing on the lil bit of knowledge that I've accumulated in the past 30+ years. But truth be told without reasonable opportunity for harvest, we could just go hang out in the woods and get that same "outdoors together" feelings.

I recall when the WDG had game management units on the Canal side of the Olympics for which there was a season for mountain goats for which you had to enter for a tag drawing - and you could only submit for one unit. Turns out there were no goats in some of those units and they knew it. So why dredge up that very old abuse? Because it goes to the issue of defining opportunity.

Sure, harvest is down the list but how many of those hunters and fishers would be out there on a given day if there was no reasonable opportunity for harvest? (Or, how many of the folks who tossed their permit app into one of those barren units would have done so had they KNOWN there were no goats there??).

So, while I generally concur with you I also believe that the appropriate terminology in discussing the recreational side is "reasonable opportunity."