Well this came through my e mail. Anyone know anything about the problems?


Thanks for the post. WDFW scaled back purse seining in puget sound for chum salmon at the behest of the tribes this year. The tribal fishers have been very upset at the scale of the seine removals prior to their fisheries in Hoods Canal and in the Tulalip areas.

Whereas in previous years they were allowed two days per week at the peak of the run, which could result in substantial whacks on escapement if the runs and right tide coincided, this year they have been restricted to one day per week until late in the chum season.

WDFW allowed a situation to develop here in which, despite limited purse seine entry, the capacity of the fleet continues to mushroom. I would guess a doubling of the gross tonage in the past ten years. New seiners are 3 million dollars plus, 30 foot beam. And there are no depth limits here either. It's not uncommon to hear of ten strip purse seines (about 200 feet deep). The depth limit in AK for seines is 4.5 strips.

When WDFW sends out observers on purse seiners, they have no data boxes on their forms to record the depth of purse seines or the condition of released salmonids. We in the gillnet industry have raised the biased data collection issue with WDFW in writing since our observers are given much more detailed forms which include net depth, condition of released fish and highly specific data boxes for species of birds and marine mammals (which again are absent in the purse seine forms.) It seems that when it comes to purse seines WDFW does not want comparable data.