Free: Contests & Raffles.
I see many news stories about hay bails, and confrontations on river road in our future
WDFW stood up for sport fishermen in this mess. There were 2 tribes that made ultimatums for no sportfishing in the Puyallup River and MA9,10,&11. The Puyallups and the Muckleshoots.Yesterday WDFW met with them again and proposed a new fishing package for PS with a few more cuts to the Puyallup River fisheries. Tribes said no way so in a nutshell WDFW ended the talks.In the past, WDFW and the tribes negotiated seasons and the state tagged onto the tribe's federal fishing permit. WDFW is applying for a seperate permit now. Now this falls on NOAA-Fisheries to approve the permits. There are a couple of people at NOAA that were pressuring WDFW to just take the deal and made statements to the effect that the states permit would take up to 8 months to approve. At this point, it is all speculation and I believe these statements were made by the NOAA staff to induce WDFW to just take the *censored*ty deal (makes it easier on NOAA).Kudos to WDFW for standing up for us and not bowing to 2 tribes ultimatum.If you want to be pissed at someone, WDFW is not the proper target. Be pissed at the Muckleshoots, Puyallups and NOAA for allowing the tribes to gillnet our salmon runs onto the ESA list. Tribes have been exceeding thier 50% quota for years now with no penalty.What can you do now? Email and call our elected officials to pressure NOAA to A) fast track the states permit application and B) provide oversight and penalties to any parties that don't follow the rules and exceed quotas.Join CCA and/or PSA if you haven't already. These 2 groups are the main groups that are fighting for our rights as sportsfishers. This link is a fast and easy way to email a pre-written letter to your elected officials. Change it as you wish but please, please, please do this. Only public pressure through our elected officials (many of which are up for re-election) will convince NOAA to change their policies.https://www.votervoice.net/CCAPNW/Campaigns/46145/Respond?vvsn=BEnYDAGPACBRLAvybsO7BAA
So if the tribes get their permit and the state does not what is the coarse of action? Do we as sport fishers stand up and take a card from the enviro folks and sue NOAA for allowing gillnetting on rivers with esa protected salmon. They would have had to proform an EIS at one point I would think. We might be able to find a discrepancy in the EIS that would make it void and get a judge to put a hold on all fishing until it is fixed. That could put enough pressure on the tribes to be willing to work with WDFW.On a side note stay strong WDFW! Now is the time to take a stand and save salmon fishing for future generations.