Nice to see the other board members in attendance and I thought all did a good job of making their points.

I had a short but pleasant conversation with Rollie Schmitten and (I assume) his wife after the meeting. Rollie, like me, started going to Neah Bay in the mid 50’s with his grandfather and father so he is connected with the area and familiar with the fishery. He will also be at tonight’s meeting in PA. Rollie is a sports fisher; he and his wife were telling me how much fun they were having this year limiting out on Lake Wenatchee sockeye. Seemed like a pretty nice couple and he is genuinely interested in this particular topic.

Connie Mahnken, (another nice guy) told us there would be at least one Commissioner at each of the public meetings. I encourage you all (especially Andy) to introduce yourself to any of the Commissioners present and also to the Department staff if you have the opportunity and please thank the Commissioners for attending. Remember, it's the Commission that we have to convince.

I agree with Doug in that the science is lacking and I would also add that I felt the Department was not well prepared for the meeting; they were not able to answer some of the questions, seemed a bit unfamiliar with the proposed restricted areas and in-fact could not identify all the boundaries. When asked if they would be better prepared for subsequent meetings, the answer was “not likely”. Kind of makes you wonder who came up with the “plan”.

In any case, I suspect the PA meeting will be better attended, more vocal, less polite and more emotional. I would love to be at all the meetings but I have conflicts for tonight and Thursday.

Bear