Eyefish,

I don't have any firsthand knowledge nor crystal ball as to what will transpire with Wecker, but the Gov and D's in the Senate seem to be opposed to her serving further. In the long run that's not going to go well, unless the R's in the senate take a unified supportive stance and peel off a few D's to confirm her. The other option is the Gov eats crow on this. Not something politicians usually do willingly. The logical conclusion is that her service on the commission will end within the year. I dearly hope I am wrong.


Dave,

You are wrong. The marine recs did have full access to the forks creek hatchery production as they fished in front of the nets from 2000-2009-- the nets did not go into the bay until sept 15. The nets still got most of the fish, but the opportunity for the recs was there and anglers both local and from afar to great advantage.

The goal for any marine rec fisherman that was serious in this WB process was to return to something resembling the glory years. We got the seasons right, but absent hatchery production (10% of the plant of the glory years) to support a fishery. Now the recs will have to try and adapt and learn to fish the jaws of the bay and/or south bay to target hatchery chinook. That leaves the local populations of south bend/raymond (approximately half the rec fleet) mostly on the beach as it will be a big boat show.

An alternative to what we had now was to keep naselle primary, force a low harvest rate and leave willapa as it was:
Conservation goals met, check
Rec fishery intact, check.
Gillnetters unhappy, check.

WDFW staff decided they would rather place the conservation burden on the marine rec fleet than the gillnet fleet so they switched the primary eliminating meaningful rec fishery and maximizing chinook in the nets while meeting conservation goals.

The message to the marine rec anglers is that fish are in the ocean and south bay, go find them. It will be an experiment. I will certainly be taking the challenge, but in 2020 you will see the CRCs on chinook catch in MA2-1 tank and much complaining about how poor the fishing is out of southbend and raymond.

The funny thing is that the gillnetters will probably sue over a 50% reduction in their fishery, but the marine rec and willapa river fishers are cellebrating a decision that will reduce their fishery by 90%.

Its all very bizarre to me.