During our meeting with the senior Leadership of WDFW on the 26th of Oct, the department's legal representative said that the sport fishing community is responsible for the current situations between the Tribes and WDFW. The situation meaning things like: The ramp at Point no point, the loss of the Skokomish river and having the observers thrown out and kept out of the NOF process since 2013! He explained that the sport fishing community "upset" the tribes by their comments on the various fishing boards, and therefore the Tribes "clam up" and refuse to cooperate. WDFW asks that we STOP upsetting the tribes. The Director says their strategy is to "cooperate and wait" meaning, they will continue to build the relationship in hopes that sometime in the future the tribes will see all the good will and respond.

SO, I apologize for forgetting my place. After all, I AM only a citizen of this state, and it is not my place to ask for fair and transparent fisheries management. I'm sorry if I've hurt the tribal co-managers feelings and hope they will not use the permits as a tool to punish the sport fishing community.

Nevertheless, they persisted.

I will have to agree that the performance of many along the Skok was not the Poster Boy example of how anglers should behave in public.

LMFAO.......Grays Harbor has the "Wynoochee Mitigation" going on, $2.4 million setting in a fund for steelhead and Coho on this river.

Current Director likes to "cooperate and wait", well kiss my ass....the wait part has been going on since 1992, that is 25 YEARS. Those of us that have spent time with local Region 6 staff and have taken the time to make presentations before the WDFW Commission, have a feeling about "wait" from WDFW Staff........grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Seems like WDFW's legal representative needs to take stock of who WDFW works for. Annoys the hell out of me when public employees forget what public service means.

Lord folks the tribe or agency is always upset with the public in particular the Rec who pays the bills. Your rocking the happy little process boat. If not that they would find something else to blame but never look in the mirror and admit both the tribes and agency are the problem. Always have a fall guy is how it works.

I need a name please....

Tribe's want to play in the Big Leagues then they should expect a few that are high and tight. Grow the **uck up. If their feelings are that easily hurt.......

Please tell us that meeting was taped.

Unfortunately no, the meeting was not taped. We thought about it, but in the end decided it would seem too confrontational.

However, what I said can be corroborated by four others who in the meeting with me.

Thats funny, blame the people you serve, who's taxes and fees pay your salary, who you exclude from participation or being witness to any and all negotiations, for poor relations with the co-managers. So blame the people who you negotiate on behalf of for doing a poor job.

This sounds really reasonable.

It’s the perfect solution for the WDFW leadership. Tell the Sportsmen it’s all there fault. That way they take no responsibility AND they feel good about not representing us because we’re just a bunch of trouble makers.

Hey Ned, not sure what you mean by needing a name, but the person who made the comment that the sports are responsible for the Tribes not wanting to play nice is. AG Mike Grossmen. I believe he is then Assistant District Attorney assigned to the Department.

Oh, so this guy "mike Grossman" works for that NAZI ball licker "Bob Ferguson", no wonder he is a self empowered disrespectful prick who would never take responsibility for his own actions. Well this explains a lot, it also explains the reason we are in this position and why the people we pay to represent our interests are only serving themselves. I wonder how much "casino" money they receive in "brown bag payments" and how many "VIP" on the house" visits they get to the casinos?

Nothing surprises me anymore, especially in this state where a lifelong serial child sex predator can run for high political office, be voted in, hold the position and then ride away into the sun set with nothing to worry about when the poop gets too deep.

These are the things we should expect in this state unfortunately.

" I believe he is then Assistant District Attorney assigned to the Department."

The title is Assistant Attorney General (AAG), assigned to the Department.

I agree with Mr Grossman. It is our fault we are in this situation.
Who else should we be blaming?

Wdfw works for tribal and commercial special interest groups with deep pockets. If there buddies need something done it will get done.
At the expense of the resource they are supposed to be protecting.

Tribes are winning this battle but the fish are losing the war.

But the Tribes are the First Conservationists and make their management decisions seven generations into the future. Least that is what our mandatory training told us.

Yes, sorry for the error...

This is pathetic and disgusting but nothing new.

This is the culture of this states government, you saw it with the "safe injection sites" with King County, corrupt judges decide that the people have no voice.

Nearly 20 years ago as a tribal police officer I tried to report proof of fraud to WDFW, proof was waiting for them, frozen in the fish house, (4200 wild steelhead with heads and tails cut off) frozen and stacked like cord wood, waiting to be transported as it had been sold as Halibut bait headed to the Alaska commercial fishery. Instead of thanking me for the information and taking some type of action, they refused to even come look at it, instead they accused me of lying and called me names. That is the culture we are dealing with here in Washington.

We have massive corruption on all levels, every branch is totally compromised. The only thing that matters is money.

If self-policing camera streaming the meetings isn’t an acceptable solution by the tribes to halt errant comments by observers, then logic would dictate that the tribe’s excuse to exclude the public is just that---an excuse.

Are the tribes untruthful while excluding the public---perception will be the judge.

that's true, if the meetings are closed to the public and an interested party is excluded than all that can be done is speculation by the excluded group.

Its common sense that this would happen, that people would assume the worst especially when they see fewer and fewer opportunities year after year and as a long term trend much less fish as a whole. Everything costs more and less and less opportunity with greater restrictions.

When you look at the rest of the state government its obvious that it shares the same short cummings, same challengers, same scandals, that DFW has. when you have one group who has maintained control of an entire state for generations corruption really has an opportunity grow, now its to the point where it is boiling over, problem is most of the media is owned by the same bad players who fund the campaigns.

With all the lies you have tried to perpetuate on this site ( I say "try" as most of us call you out continually for your horseshit) we should believe anything you say even if it appears to be believable (by anyone else!) ? I don't think so. Bob R

I don't recall telling any lies. I have remained pretty consistent for as long as I have been on here. Just because you don't believe much of what I write does not make it untrue.

Check the archives between 2000 and 2003 you should find an original thread on it. But I have told the story many times on here over the years.

So, those in conservation that would like to see more wild fish come back to terminal areas and then spawn in their respective rivers would manipulate work with the tribes by being antagonistic to the tribes in hope of more lost opportunity to state sport fishers to hopefully achieve the proper end result.

The tribes being just another tool ---------in the tool box are destined to be unhappy---with no end in sight.

The conundrum is that the tribal fishermen and sport fishermen don't play well together. Don't/can't/won't share the water. So, if we do get more fish back to terminal areas and need more harvest by both sides in those areas it will create an interesting mess for managers.

Excuses without merit are unacceptable.

It's our fault for not smiling as we got poked in the pooper.

And its racist pieces of S&%$ like you that give first nations a reason not to trust us.

Whatever, Geronimo. Stam does not use the I word or the N word. LOL

I find it disingenuous that the state would blame the sportsmen for current conditions considering the historically background between state/federal officials/governments involvement with the tribes.

A recent example several years back was the steelhead settlement between the state and an organization that left the tribes sitting on their thumbs in the background out of negotiations that cut major production of steelhead in many of the Puget Sound rivers.

The tribes and sportsmen might have more in common than they realize---"OUR" distrust for the “STATE”.

The fact that WDFW represents me in negotiations makes me want to set myself - or them - on fire.

While it may be true that some of the comments by various sports man and this other forums were off base. I can see how some of those comments could inflame the situation. That said I believe it is important to look at the underlying causes.

On the whole I have found that we as sport anglers tend to be under informed on the nuances of salmon management and the process developing our annual seasons. In addition it is rare that anglers are provided with complete information upon which to form opinions and potentially assign blame for various frustrations.

While it might be appropriate to assign some communication blame on the sports community not be completely up to speed on the issues and reality of the salmon management in this state. My observation is that a large share of the "blame" falls on WDFW and their co-management. The failure has been in both in communication to the sport community and transparency within the "process". Recent decisions/actions by the co-managers only serves to compound the problems.

For what is worth I have found incredible passion for the salmon resource in the sport fishing community and it would serve the salmon resources and those that care to fish for that resource to capture that passion. Long term success in any salmon recovery efforts will require uniting that shared passion (tribal and non-treaty) to the benefit of the regions rivers and the resource those rivers support. Unfortunately the co-managers have been unable to bridge their differences and seem to be struggling to find any sort of path forward.

The entire situation does not bode well for either the salmon resource or those that care about that resource.

Curt

Properly regulated, managed, and reported gill netting, in rivers, is probably the best commercial gear currently available. Traps would be better, fish wheels might work too. The in-river gillnets are being blamed because they are obvious. The unseen marine mixed stock fisheries are overlooked since they are remote and generally take fewer fish per day. Although a single Canadian troller taking over 1,000 coho (majority being WA origin) suggested to me that they can be efficient, too.

None of the managers are willing to say that, for the future, we will increase the escapement by a minimum of 10% over brood. There has been no effort to put more fish on the grounds and it has been all the managers, working together, to create this situation.

Absolutely. This hands off, auto-pilot management is not anywhere close to what is needed. The harder you fish, the more effort needs to be placed in monitoring, planning, regulation, and enforcement. Seems that The Co-Managers want to do less......

Trust us.............

In related news, an angry Bill Cosby is claiming that none of those women left a thank you card.

Admittedly, salmon management in our state is a complex issue. Lots of rivers in bad shape, very few in fair shape. Fishing seasons have been reduced considerably. Controversy on setting fishing seasons is a topic of conversation in thousands of homes, fishing boats, F&W Commission meetings, etc. All citizens have access to the North of Falcon meetings, but only treaty tribal members get to hear and input on some of the most complex season setting decisions, decided in closed door meetings with WDFW leadership. The results of setting the tribal/recreational seasons is sometimes surprising, sometimes not. But how the decisions are discussed and ultimately set is still a secret. It is very reasonable to open the door to these meetings since WDFW represents all citizens. At a minimum, the meetings between WDFW and the treaty tribes should be telecast live. Just my opinion. I don't think WDFW wants to be put under the microscope as to their actions in the WDFW/tribal salmon setting process.