Dear Fellow Anglers,

I am a member of the WDFW's Anadromous and Marine Resources Sportfishing Advisory Group. The group includes anglers such as myself (you've probably seen my reports on washingtonlakes.com before) along with some charter captains, resort operators and club or group representatives. The Department uses us as a method to gain additional "customer" input and provide another vehicle for communicating info as well.

In a recent meeting, several of the coastal charter folks asked about the possibility of having non-selective fisheries on the coast and Columbia. They claim that mark rates are going down and their customers don't like having to throw lots of nice fish back in hopes of getting a keeper. In this day-and-age of ESA and depressed runs, the Department must manage the fisheries to minimize impacts on threatened runs. Therefore, a non-selective (keep any coho) fishery would have to be shorter than a selective fishery to keep the impacts the same. I'm sorry that I can't give more details on how much shorter the season would be. That would come out of modelling by the Department.

The question for us sport-fishing types is: Would you prefer a shorter season on the coast and Columbia where you could keep any coho or would you prefer a selective coho fishery (clipped only) that was more like last year in season length. Please provide feedback here in the forum. I will sum up the general opinion and take that back to the Group. I'm kind of a newbie to the forums, but I will try to interact as needed. Thanks!

Tom Drews