On this day...

...in 1969, Republican Governor Dan Evans made the Steelhead the Washington State Fish.

He was an ardent conservationist, and was instrumental in creating the Washington State Dept. of Ecology, before most states had done so, and before the Feds came up with the EPA.

https://methowvalleynews.com/2017/08/31/where-are-the-dan-evans-republicans/

That was 8 years before I caught my first steelhead, and my has the world changed since then!

It will be a sad day when the last "state fish" is either fin clipped or stuffed and sitting on a shelf in a museum.

I'll tip one back in his name this weekend while I try and catch a wild steelhead or three!

Fish on...

Todd

Didn't know any of that, and I'm better for knowing it. Thanks for the education.

Wish I was steelheading this weekend, but I',m not. Let's all raise one to Gov. Evans, whatever we're doing this weekend. Seems like both sides of the aisle could use a few more like him these days.

Todd actually giving credit to a a Republican???

First time for everything!

Good luck on your trip, hope you find a few, share pictures if you do.

Yep Dan Evans and Tom McCall were Republicans cut from a different cloth.

Dan Evans was a little different than Republicans today, to say the least...and a lot of Republicans then were. Their 60s and 70s platforms aren't a lot different than the "radical extremist left" platforms now...the current crop has left all pretense behind.

Fish on...

Todd

Probably before the parties became so damn sided ........


Thanks for sharing Todd. Really does make one think.

[/quote]

Dan Evans was a little different than Republicans today, to say the least...and a lot of Republicans then were. Their 60s and 70s platforms aren't a lot different than the "radical extremist left" platforms now...the current crop has left all pretense behind.

Fish on...

Todd [/quote]
Evens was a great protector of our fish, the reason I voted for him was primarily his vetoing the Cherry Point Oil facility, citing the threat to the herring that spawn there. Booth Gardner was the opposite, using his office as a protectorate for his families' Warehouser business trashing our state and whittling away hundreds of thousands of environmental fines to benefit his family and their shareholders at our expense. Only republican I have ever supported.

But Booth was a Democrat. Doesn't that mean he walks on water at least environmentally?

I just may do that, we'll see.

Tomorrow is the 44th anniversary of my first steelhead, I realized this morning. March 19, 1977...three weeks before my 8th birthday, from the Sammamish River.

Fish on...

Todd

No.

Fish on...

Todd

No, as I said, he covered his family's ass over many documented environmental abuses. It was cheaper to hold the state up with legal challenges and then negotiate the fines down to 10 to 40% of their original costs. Made it more profitable to destroy watersheds and habitat then actually obeying the laws. Who do you think he worked for before he "worked for us"?

Dan's son Bruce was my buddy in Junior High.

Good times and good luck this weekend.

Very cool! Did you get to talk to Dan at all? I am guessing he was our Senator at that time?

Thanks, good times will be had, we'll see if they include shaking hands with a fish or three.

Fish on...

Todd

Dan was the Gov at the time.
As kids we terrorized the Gov Mansion.
I lived just up the street.


Low and to the right this weekend.

No low and to the right required, unfortunately...plenty of pretty and sizeable bull trout, but no steelhead for us. Both rivers looked great, reports were dismal. Maybe try again in a couple of weeks..

Nothing else I'd have rather been doing, though.

Fish on...

Todd

Yeah that... but ONLY on river right.

Roughly 40-50 years is the reproducible interval required for mankind to first exploit and then destroy a PREMIERE fishery.

Watch Rivers of a Lost Coast chronicling the rise and fall of California steelheading.

I think of my beloved Kenai king salmon... horribly depleted in my lifetime.

Add Puget Sound steelhead to the list.

The coastal/OP steelhead populations are next... it's just a matter of time.

People suck.