Not sure if this is exactly the right place because it covers both hunting and fishing but here goes.

Archery World in Lacey, and the rest of its shops, is closing. We lose an indoor range and a good pro shop. A short while back the only purely fly fishing shop in Lacey closed.

AW noted that the business climate (regs) and taxes were a large part of the reason but also included were internet shopping and decreasing hunting opportunities. I never talked to flyshop owner but online I read that the loss of fishing opportunities, particularly steelhead, led to insufficient business to stay open.

Shouldn't part of WDFW's job be to support the fishing and hunting industry in the state? Well, it actually is but it seems they need to look a more into what the businesses need to stay open. Not suggesting that business needs should trump conservation (even though they do) but if you keep cutting opportunity it seems the support industries dry up.

Natural and logical consequences. Hunting and fishing have been declining for years, although fishing license sales experienced an uptick during the first two covid years. I'm not sure if they have resumed the downward trend.

WDFW if obliged to "provide hunting and fishing opportunity, and commercial fishing." I guess that indirectly supports the ancillary businesses, but they are not an express obligation spelled out in the enabling legislation.

The legislation used two refer to the "industry" which logically should include suppliers, support, and infrastructure.

It seems obvious to me, just from an economic sense, that if WDFW screws the pooch on license buyers that nobody else is gonna fund natural resources because this state, and many others, severely underfund most everything.

Opportunities dry up when fisheries close for what reasons? No fish? Conservation? Can't enforce participation?... lame excuse. Lawsuits from groups to protect what? A fish you can't see or experience unless you hook one? I don't get it. IMO Steelhead should be open year round everywhere, C&R. If anything, cooperative research like the Russian Kamchatka and Kola Peninsula research that has gone on for years on wild steelhead could be integrated into opportunity here for the same thing. ESA laws need to be changed to accommodate research, and at the same time offer opportunity.

In Kamchatka they have huge runs of wild salmon fertilizing the streams. As was demonstrated in BC, pure C&R didn't help the steelhead there.

That may be true. But in the name of research, opens opportunity to fish for them. Why can't we fish in this state in the name of research? The strict rules we follow under selective gear rules are already in place.