Paying to punch

Was the idea passed that each additional punch card (after the first one is filled) will cost 5-10$ for each punch card after the first one?

YES $10

because the general fund can always use more money!

Chum Man,

That is NOT general fund money. It is detacated to research.

Yea, right!

Research to see how they can keep increasing our fees without doing $hit for it! How did we all live so long without WDFW doing all that "research"?

What's wrong with WDFW just telling the truth and just saying; bad times; need more money to keep our jobs; and if you are dumb enough to buy that crock of $hit . . . then great!

What a bunch of hockey puck! It's all about money and keeping their jobs on this one and nothing else!!

Cowlitzfisherman

Actually the $10 increase in our salmon licenses some years ago was supposed to be for the program that retains blackmouth in Puget Sound to "enhance" fishing in Puget Sound with the dream that fishing could occur 12 months out of the year...Well years of disastrous fisheries management and over fishing have made that a distant dream at best. The enhancement money was soon gobbled up by the general fund so we could afford those $800,000 outhouses in Pioneer Square for the winoes to pee in instead of on the street and various other "services"...Now the new law mandates that the additional revenue stays in the department. What they really do with it remains to be seen. There will be considerable financial strains coming up with hatchery reform and ESA compliance so maybe it will help. I personally haven't ever filled a punch card but I think the number of slots has diminished over the years.

Sounds to me like no money is safe with the stae or WDFW. This sounds just like the duck stamp money that has never been accounted for.

An interesting little bit of info most don't know, this increase was sponcerd by sportfishing as legislation and supported by all sportfishing groups that spend any time doing any work in Olympia. It was done specifically for the purpose of trying to minimize or eliminate further cuts to hatcheries and the money goes into the wildlife account. So if you dont like it, blame sportfishing groups, blame your legislators, or well, blame me.

hey Mike,
so your to blame!

well thank you very much I appraciate your work. finaly an organization that realizes that services are not free.
last I heard it cost $500 for each hatchery fish we bonk on the head. I have even heard one politican who wanted to use this study to make us pay for each fish we killed(duh, he lost the election) he also wanted "the user" to pay the whole bill for saveing wild fish and to pay for "buying and up keep" of all ramps,parks,campgrounds and all. I would blow him and his ideas off as a nutcase except all these "user fees" keep going up because no one wants "their taxes" to pay for "those programs."
My perfect politican would fund the hatcheries so we could release as many fish as we did in the 70's and if he needed to raise my taxes for this so what. if he then took some of the extra taxes to build an outhose for bums so what. as long as I have some fish to catch and still have money to go fishing I'm happy.

Cowlitz,

As you have allready found out, you wont find and specifics about hatcheries in the text. It is just that in the real world the Department needed $X dollars and the budget was only giving them $Y. Under the $Y there were going to be hatchery closures so there were some ideas thrown around to get the department more money. This idea was the one that stuck as the forcasted revenue was enough to run a couple hatcheries. What the actual revenue will be we can wait and see.

There are several funds under the control of the department. The wildlife fund is, I guess you would say, the primary one. There are others, like the PSRE (Puget Sound Recreational Enhancement, ie blackmouth). I can't name them all, some are dedicated for specific hunting uses and others for fishing uses. Whatever money the deparment needs that is not available from these funds is allocated from the general fund by the legislature.

Thanks Mike for your quick response.

Here is the problem in a nut shell as I see it now!

You said; "It is just that in the real world the Department needed $X dollars and the budget was only giving them $Y. Under the $Y there were going to be hatchery closures so there were some ideas thrown around to get the department more money. This idea was the one that stuck as the forecasted revenue was enough to run a couple hatcheries. What the actual revenue will be we can wait and see."

In the "real world" (today's government) state governmental agencies have to be up front and truthful with their needs! No longer are the days when they can tell us one thing, and do another.

I had read about all the "other" funds that WDFW has, and how they are most likely "kind of screwed up" also, but I had chose not to post all the RCW's that may apply to those issues on this posting.

How can fishermen ever learn again to "trust" a state agency when the "agency" is not totally up front or truthful with the people who pay the piper? Forgetting the facts or the merits for just a moment of "why" the WDFW needed this "extra funding", let's just talk about trust or maybe the lack of trust in the WDFW.

Obviously, WDFW believed that they needed more money to continue whatever programs they were involved in when they predicted these finical shortfalls. Instead of being up-front with "the public", apparently they had chosen people who were brought into play to help put pressure on the legislators to pass this new law.

Common people must ask; why then didn't WDFW open this issue up to all it's public supporter and ask for their help and support. Instead, it certainly now appears that only a few groups of hand picked "supporters" were told the real facts.

And you and others wonder why some people start talking or implying the age old "conspiracy" thing! The more I read and research this issue, the more I understand why WDFW is always being cut from the general funding. I know better then most, of the games that are now being played out, but I still expect, no I demand, that WDFW be honest and up front when they need more money from their number one supporters.

I can say more, and I most likely will, but for now let's see if some other bb members can explain this fiasco any better. Again Mike, thanks for all your hard work and efforts and my reply does not in any way reflect on either you or your integrity. At least you are a doer, and not a just a talker! You can say that you have "walked the talk"

Aunty, you are right, but WDFW has a public responsibility to inform us all were they are going to "spend" the money from this new tax. I am not against WDFW using that money for enforcement, but if they can not be "up front" from the very beginning, who in the devil can trust them?

Cowlitzfisherman

Geez CF....I should wait until I get up at 4am to read your voluminous conspiracy theory.

(4) The funds received from the sale of catch record cards must be deposited into the wildlife fund.

I think this issue is pretty simple. The WDFW budget was getting sucked out by politicians for other BS programs in this state. Sports people who DO things...worked to support this idea to give back some money that is earmarked for WDFW and not Frank Chopp and Gary Locke to spend on some insane entitlement. What WDFW does with the money , as I said earlier, remains to be seen.
And are you really shocked that a government agency or a politician would say one thing and do a completely different thing. Like the lottery paying for schools.HAHAHAHAHA....Or Gary Locke proclaiming to be the education governor and then fighting to lower teacher's pay....Fishing is embroiled in politics unfortunately and that is why we need organizations like RFA and PSA (and many others that I don't belong to) to fight the political fight.

If you don't like this minor battle won then go fight along side the rest of us and come up with a better idea.

And Aunty, I am not convinced that the land acquisitions by WDFW are sinister or not worthwhile. Maybe you could ask whomever in WDFW is responsible for real estate to answer from their perspective and we could debate instead of accuse them of some conspiracy. Don't get me wrong I like conspiracies! I prefer to blame Washington Trout for everything bad though...OH...and the Democrats.

mike, do you have a list of the fishing groups that were involved in this issue, thanks.

JUST MY opinion and i don't wanna debate it cause you guys already know how i think.

1 punchcard per angler per year period..
no additional fee increases of any kind period.

Here we go some more! when is the state going to pull there heads out of there *** and get rid of the nets! The increase in dollars due to a thriving sportfishing industry will give them more than enough money to play with.

I guess that will never happen because the money from the commercial industry goes in there pockets and as long as this crap keeps up were going to keep paying more and more while the netters are raping and pilaging our resource. We get to pay for it! thats ****ed

Oh no? how much money do you make fishing? thats right zero! why are we paying so much to fish? the commercials and tribals make millions yet they only pay kibbles and bits!

AuntyM.....I wasn't slamming you about the land purchases. I just don't know anything about it and was suggesting that we find out why they purchase land in the first place. If they are just buying land willy nilly for no good reason then yes it is absurd during budget shortfalls. It could be like so many other government agencies in that they must spend what they are allocated each year or it is "wasted" in their world. If they don't spend it it their budgets will be cut for next year??? I don't know. The land purchases may also be done as the opportunities come along too. I will do some research of my own and see where this goes.

By the way I should have just changed my email in my profile but I like being cloned so a few on this BB have 2 people to hate.

Hey CF how many punch cards do you usually fill each season on the cow?

That depends on the size of the silver run each year! Last year it was five cards. The year before it was 4 cards. Nobody in Toledo ever goes hungry when I am fishing for silvers. You might say that I specialize in silver!

But it's not just the cost that was at issue in this post; it's the issue that WDFW kept their real reasons for increasing the fees pretty much in secret, except to that of only a few groups that they knew that they would count on for support.

Do not forget, I have personally worked with many of the top staff in the WDFW for many years now, some are still there while others have retired or have moved on . Both our attorneys and I have had numbers of closed doors meetings concerning possible wrong doings by WDFW and we have also had judicial hearings concerning some shaky things that WDFW upper staff has done in the past. So remember, I have years of experience and hands on action to support 99% of what I say when it comes the WDFW's past history. remember this; you can take it to the bank.... history always repeats itself!

If some of these members had spent just one half of amount of time that I have working with different groups and the WDFW,WDOE, NMFS, USFWS, and the utilities (BPA, TP, LCPUD), they would probably be eating a little crow pie (and it would be well done....if not burnt!).

Grandpa, that was meant to answer your statement; "If you don't like this minor battle won then go fight along side the rest of us and come up with a better idea." If you were addressing that to me, and I am assuming that you were I would be more then willing to match my time card against yours when it comes to the volunteer hours spent working with WDFW, Utilities or other fish related groups!

How many times have you signed up and testified at hearings to support our fish runs and drive over 100 miles to do it?

Maybe I better stop now before I really get my hair up with your statements! You may or may not agree with what I write or opine, but you have no grounds to stand on "IF" you are trying to insinuate that I am not an active participant in making change to our sport fishing opportunities!

PS, were your "cloned"? If so, are there now you & it? If so, are you you or are you it?

Driftinforchrome: Please explain how WDFW can charge us an extra $10 dollars for a "punch" card when they do not spend a dime on rearing the silvers on the Cowlitz? Tacoma Power pays 100% of the bill to raise all of the coho on the Cowlitz, so how in the hell can WDFW justify charging us and extra ten bucks for something that they didn't do?


Cowlitzfisherman

Aunty

Well, we will talk this week end!

But grandpa needs to think before he makes such statements like he has (if they were indeed intended for me).

Could just be a communications problem, but then again maybe it's just a standard cloning problem

Cowlitzfisherman

Cowlitz,

The issue needs to be separated out a little.

Could the department have made cuts in other areas to eliminate the need for the fee? Obviously yes

Would it have been better to make cuts in other areas rather than jepordizing hatchery funding? For us, yes. But remember that the Govenors budget at the time called for hatchery closures, directing the department where to make cuts.

You stated I just want to make clear that the process used for implimenting the fee was in no way secretive, or even instigated by the department. It was supported by the department, but I think you would be hard pressed to find any fee increase that was not supported by the benifiting agency. The legislation got through both houses and the govenor.

I agree with you Mike!

So let's attempt to separate the issues at hand.

First, I believe that you have also agreed that the "department" (WDFW) could have made cuts in other areas to eliminate the need for this new tax (fee).

Some people will cover this up by calling it a "fee", but in reality, it's just another tax! It's not like a user fee, it is an additional tax if you want more.

You have read the RCW's and you are fully aware that the "Wildlife Fund" is an unaccountable fund that almost has no limits to what it can spend its revenues on. It can be for almost whatever the Director, or his staff applies it to! If I am wrong with this definition, please explain where.

Before WDFW can move forward, they must first establish trust among there users and supports. That means all users and all supports, and not just the ones who they may choose! The WDFW has lied too many to get the support of the few who are vocal in the legislation. That fact is almost impossible to now deny.

So how will WDFW correct this screw up that has been now exposed?

Could some of those "cuts" have been made in there own management? Could a Bio or two have been let go? Could a publication or 50 been cut? Could the Hunting and fishing rules been published in black and white instead of color? Could a few less computers been purchased? Could two or three new trucks or cars been cut back? The list is endless, except we were not even given a chance to see the list!

WDFW will never get any better in fish management until they are up front with the people who support their actions and pay their salaries; and that means all of us!

This is only a "tip" of an iceberg that has been floating astray for way to long. Sooner or later it's going to have to melt . . . and then what?


Cowlitzfisherman

I am all for cuts but any money saved by thoes cuts should go to wild fish.. We already spend plenty on hatcheries and there are more than enough hatchery fish.

Rob Allen,
You finally made a comment that I agree with.
"one punch card per year period" I would buy into that if you didnt have to punch chums or pinks.

There is a huge amount of taxpayer money being spent on wild fish. It is just not all in WDFW budget. Look at department of Ecology, Outdoor Recreation, and others. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

The punch card is a data recording tool so they can try to manage the resources properly. Lets try to avoid making its purpose into an allocation tool. The use of seasonal limits is better applied on a species by species and location by location basis and really should only be a consideration when bag limits fail to address a specific problem.

Cowlitz-
Tax, Fee, whatever, it is more money paid by those who choose to harvest a higher rate than the average.

If you follow this link
http://www.wa.gov/wdfw/com/minutes/sep1401.htm
you will see the meeting minutes from a 2001 commission meeting where the commission has to approve the supplemental budget. There are several other meetings minutes where the commission approves land aquisitions. There are opportunities to scrutinize the department budget, but not from the internet.

Mike what i am saying is that more hatchery fish is a bad thing!! Our rivers are already flooded with them, well except when hatcheries prove how poorly they work sometimes.. like last winter.

Hey Rob

I got a much better idea! Let's make every fisherman who wants to fish for "wild fish" buy a special $10 punch card. Every time they c&r a wild fish, they must punch their cards. Think of the money that you guys could make to save all those wild fish! Think of all that viable information that WDFW could do with it. Then they could really known just how strong each rivers wild runs were.

I hear some guys on this board say that when the "wild" fish are in, that they can go out and hooked and released 6-9 wild fish each trip. Boy what a money maker that would be for the wild fish recovery! Why aren't the "wild fish" advocates pushing for this kind of fee increase? Maybe it just a tad bit to close to home! Then they can truly say that they are paying their fare share of what WDFW is spending on wild fish recovery.

Cowlitzfisherman

Boy now theres a GREAT idea CFM. I like that one the best so far.

Would never work, what is going to make someone punch the card. You catch 10 fish and release 10 fish, number of punches would be 0.

Hey!

If all these "wild fish" supporters are as good as the claim that they are, it will work! If they are not, then the buck falls where it lands!

What is it now? almost 40 or 50 % of sport fishers claim to be for c&r ..... so surly they will do what is "right".....right?

While all us "bad guys" do not!

Cowlitzfisherman

CF.......My comments about getting involved in the process were in no way pointed at you. It is obvious that you have been involved to a large degree. Those who are not involved or engaged in the process of formulating the rules can still complain about the rules but the beauty of our system (if there is a silver lining) is that all of us are invited to get involved with no strings attached and I can assure all those doubters that getting involved and having your voice heard works wonders for change.

As far as a special punch card for released fish goes I think I will bring that up soon as a possible tallking point for NOF prep work. I think it could work this way: On the current punch card we simply add a section for C&R fish. This information would be very valuable. Right now WDFW has a log anyone can get from them to record the fish you release. This is voluntary at this time but why not make it mandatory. Check a little box to indicate wild or hatchery. Check another box for using a fly or bait. The voluntary log is a good idea because it gives WDFW a better idea of the number of C&R fish. Right now they rely on checkers at the ramps to ask you how many you released and studies have shown that most people (myself included) overestimate that number causing an overinflated estimate of hooking mortality and shorter seasons.

I'm all for the C&R numbers to be recorded accurately with stiff fines for the wild fish advocates to pay for noncompliance. Great idea!

CF

"What is it now? almost 40 or 50 % of sport fishers claim to be for c&r ..... so surly they will do what is "right".....right? "

If you are talking 40 or 50 % of the board members I might believe it.

If you are talking 40 or 50 % of all fishermen, no way do I believe it. To many meat eaters running around.

Aunty

There is not enough enforcement to prevent all the other game laws in effect.
Not that I would not punch my card but my chances of not punching it and getting away with it are almost 100% in my favor.

It is a law that cannot be enforced and would rely on the integrity of the fishermen. Way to many fishermen, with very few ethics in regards to doing the right thing.

Thanks grandpa for verifying what you had said! As you well know, when tons of people are attacking you, it's always best to ask them what they are saying. I understand, and I also know by what you have written that you are a very active person when it comes to "getting involved".

Please except my apology if I took you the wrong way. As you know, most people just site back and yap and do nothing else!

I do believe that it is time that all parties show their true colors and pay the piper for the colors that they want to see.

Cowlitzfisherman

Hey lead thrower

Show me the numbers that support what you have claimed, and I'll adjust my numbers!

Besides, ALL wild fish supporters always obey the laws to protect the wild fish. . . right? So what are you worried about? Either they care, or they don't care! Its time to put up or shut up!

They will not do the fishermen any wrong! They care! They are the ones, who are pushing for all of the reforms, so why would they not obey the game laws to the letter?



Cowlitzfisherman

CF i am not opposed to that idea except in the general terms of being opposed to any fee increases anywhere for anyone period.
and maybe i wasn't clear. i am also opposed to more hatchery fish period even if they are free. More hatchery fish would be wasteful and bad for wild fish. There are already hundreds of thousands of unharvested hatchery fish. What i say to the guy who doesn't punch as many as he'd like id. Go out fishing more.. There is an overabundance of hatchery fish everywhere in the state already. making more would be stupid ,wasteful and expensive.

is it just us sportsfisherman who have to put more money into the wildlife fund ? ,or do other users of the resourse have to pay more money such as guides, commercial fisherman, charter boat operators etc. ?

lead thrower

It is more then "feasible". But will all of the "wild fish" supporters walk their talk?

I will stand by these numbers, until someone can prove them wrong! I do agree with what you had said; "The people who will not obey the law are the same people who already don?t obey it and this is an enforceable law in my opinion."

The game wardens love to "enforce" all the game laws because they are "enforceable"!!

You know, there is another way that WDFW can also control "hatchery fish". They could make it illegal to "release" a hatchery fish if they really wanted to control all hatchery fish. That way the "wild" guys would either have to keep their catch, or punch their "wild" card when they landed a fish. Either way, the hatchery fish would be taken out of the rivers and the wild fish catch could be recorded. Now what are you going to spin on that one?


Cowlitzfisherman

CFM i think you are onto somehting there...
madnatory retention of hatchery fish ain''t a bad idea. They do it for the Non-native lake trout in Yellowstone lake that typically eat the native cutthroat..

However i think with such a reg you'd also have to say that a guy has to either quit fishing after he catches his two or three whatever the limit is or he is allowed to C-R after that..

Education is going on all over in the world of fishing. Fishing Kids and Go Play Outside and the Wildlife Coalition are just a few examples of introducing kids to fishing with good practices. WDFW hands out thousands of those little sticks to release fish and teaches people how to do it. WDFW people will be helping in areas 5 & 6 in a short few weeks to see if the C&R experiment can work on a broader scale. Catch and release of wild fish is really critical to the future of sports fishing. In my work with kids I notice that the parents strongly mention releasing the fish because they know it is the politically correct thing to do. They don't , for the most part, understand why or how. Even when their kids have a trout hooked deep in the gullet they tell them to release it. Releasing trout caught on Power Bait is obviously a joke. I would say more than 50% of the people who fish know very little about the rules and the sport in general. Education will help all of that and it is happening all over. My work with PSA allows me to reach out to a ton of people to teach them to be good stewards of the resource. For me the rhetoric stays on PP and the real good is done in the real world.

CFM, if you're filling 3 to 5 punchcards annually, no reason you can't pony up the small sum of $10 per card. When you use the resource to that extent it should cost more.

Skydriftin

Apparently you must be into "speed reading" because you had obviously missed the point! The issue was not "about money" (Though I could make that issue too) the issue was about the misconception that was used by WDFW to get the legislation passed to get that "extra" money.

I know a ton of fishermen and the guys that were concerned about paying for additional salmon cards; have already figured out how to "beat" that one! The law allows them to get free "additional salmon cards" up to and until July1 2003. I known of several people who have already gotten at lease 3 additional salmon cards, and it was done legaly. Personally, I didn't do so because I have learned never to count all your eggs before they have hatched, so why worry about getting extra cards when I haven't even filled out my first card yet.

Apparently you also missed my point about filling out extra salmon cards on the Cowlitz. Like I said before, WDFW spends next to nothing on the Cowlitz River fish hatcheries that produce those huge runs of Coho on the Cowlitz River. Why should WDFW be able to charge a person for an extra salmon card when Tacoma Power pays 100% of the cost to raise and release these coho salmon? If the State were the ones who were picking up the tab, then that would be a whole different story!

Rob:

WDFW already make you "quit" fishing for salmon once you have caught your limit of adults in our rivers, so what's the big deal if they included steelhead too? Get your 2 or 3 fish and you are done unless you hold a "special hook and release card" and then you can continue fishing for wild steelhead

THINK OF ALL THOSE STEELHEAD SMOLTS THAT WOULDN'T BE GETTING HOOKED when a fisher has gotten his limit and has to stop fishing!


Cowlitzfisherman

Cowlitz... this is getting to institutionalized. and i think it's best as it is right now.
However if guys are getting free additional harvest cards, then the cnr cards should be free as well..

really what needs to happen is that there should be a harvested and a released box to fill in on the card itself ( i believe they did that one year). Then if you fill out a card you go get a new one.

Also cards and licenses should not be sold to anyone who hasn;t turned in the previous years card..

No Rob,

I disagree with you! I think that we should all purchase c&r cards if we are going to be fishing in special c&r streams, seasons or areas. If we are spending millions of dollars of our wildlife funds for the protecting of wild fish, then the people who are doing the most damages to them (the c&r users) should only be paying a larger share. Fare is fair! I myself would choose to leave the wild fish alone, and spend all my efforts targeting those rotten hatchery fish. I would gladly be willing to pay $10 more for that "special wild fish" punch card if I was going to be fishing for those wild depress fish.

So why wouldn't it be fair and also "the right thing to do", for those of us who are causing all that hooking mortality to our "wild fish" to only pay more for their recovery?

Why wouldn't it be just as fare to do that as it was to put that additional fee for and extra salmon card? After all, it would only apply to those that do the damage and the money could go right into that "magic wildlife fund" and be spent just like the new additional $10 tag money will be spent.



Cowlitzfisherman

Well we could argue for years on hooking mortality and what studies to use but I like the canadian studies on steelhead because they are the most similiar to the fishing I do but in that case thoes using barbed hooks, treble hooks or bait should be paying a far greater share because thats where almost all hooking mortality comes from. I fish all barbless all singles and no bait since i have been doing so i feel extremely confident in saying that i have killed 0 wild fish and threfore have had 0 impact and should have to pay nothing.. ( if your going to base it off impact)

CRF, thanks for the tip on the free punchcards.

Saying that your fishing methods have NO impact Rob is disingenuous. Less impact , yes, no impact no. Don't set yourself up as a special case.