He's been in office for over 3 years now, so how do you think that he is doing to meet our legislative mandate; "… The commission, director, and the department shall preserve, protect, perpetuate, and manage the wildlife and food fish, game fish, and shellfish in state waters and offshore waters."

I haven't seen any polls yet to show how sport fishermen feel about this issue. So please vote, and we will see how the people on this board feel about Koenings and his job performance.

Feel free to post any additional comments (pro/cons) that you may have concerning your feeling about the WDFW director or his position being an appointed one.

I don't know how you should go about appointing the director. I don't think elections would be a good idea because I don't give the people enough credibility to be knowledgable of the issues. When I-697 failed I lost all faith in the people when it comes to fish releated issues.

The commericals would lobby money together to get a commisioner that would create more jobs by increasing commerical fishing and the people would just buy it up.

I don't know how the Director could be voted or how to have the decisions of the board comply with the majority of the users wishes, but not having any control and letting the board and the Director WHORE out our resources to the commercial ( WELFARE recipients) fishing interests is an abomination!

The director of WDFW is hired and serves at the behest of the WDFW commission which is made up of members who serve multi-year terms. The commissioners are appinted by the governor and are supposed to represent a diverse cross section of user groups. At the moment we have a commission that is slanted towards commercial interests very blatantly. It should come as no surprise, then, that we have a director who is also biased in favor of commercial fishing.

So all you liberal democrats take a real hard look at your governor and some of the legislators who are no friend of sports fishing. It is all about politics boys and girls. It isn't about finding the right person who is going to save our fish...We had one of those and he got tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail.

I guess that I should have added one more question to this pole!

"Should the Wildlife Commission" be an elected body?"

Cowlitzfisherman

I hate to say it, but I voted for the director being hired by the commission who in turn were appointed by the govenor. Since the change, I've been very disappointed in the outcome and think we'd be much better off going back to the govenor appointing the director. My reasoning is that since we made the change, the commission is full of competing interests and they tend to micro manage the agency. As far as I'm concerned, the commission is just one more layer in the way of improving our fish and wildlife resources. At least when the govenor appoints the director, we have good years mixed in with the bad. The govenor also has a major stake in determining budget. A govenor that is pro fish and wildlife will obviously make sure his people have what they need to make things happen. Obviously the problem would be if the govenor was a little less sympathetic to the cause. Then again, I may be all wet. Too bad managing fish and wildlife isn't about managing fish and wildlife, but managing people.

PS. I believe Koenings recently got his 5 yr pin at a staff meeting.

In my opinion, the WDFW commission is broken beyond repair. With the governor you get guys like Curt Smitch, Gary Locke's salmon guru. The process is so intertwined with bad politics that fish come second. I think we are going to be much more productive if we get involved in the politics through organizations and lobbyists. The RFA has a good shot at getting some good things done in this state if the sports fishing community supports the organization by joining and donating money. The Freedom To Fish Act is spreading across the country in coastal states and is critical to our future as sports fishermen.

All you have to do is examine some of the decisions of the commission to see that it is biased and can be unreasonable and ignorant of the facts. Look at the setting of the recent spot shrimp seasons. The commission allocated a huge percentage of the available shrimp to a handful of commercial boats. They even went so far as to make their move even more lopsided after massive testimony from the sports fishing public. In my opinion they did this to stuff it up our rearends after we questioned their wisdom on the subject. At a hearing to hear testimony a couple of the commercially biased commissioners stood up before even hearing one word from the 100 or so sports fishers in attendance and told us that the benefit to the economy from sports fishing did not count and that they were forced by legislative mandate to provide a "viable" commercial fishing season. What a crock that was! Provide a "viable" commercial season for 4 or 5 commercial shrimp boats in Puget Sound while ignoring the huge injection of cash into the economy by the thousands of sports shrimpers? The legislation they site also mandates that they provide a "quality" sports fishing opportunity. All of their studies, even by their own biologists, should have steered them to a more equitable balance of opportunity but instead they made the season a joke for sports people and did nothing to adhere to science or good sense. After hearing a ton of sensible and fact based testimony they took their preconceived , commercially biased, allocation and made it is even more lopsided in favor of the few commercial shrimpers as if to say: "OK sports people! You don't like the tiny bit you get? Well how do you like this? We'll give you even LESS!" We'll show you crybabies who's boss.

The WDFW employees and also the director do not agree with what the commission does in many cases but all they can do is shake their heads and go along due to the way the system is set up. The idea of the commission was to take unilateral power away from the governor and give power to a "diverse" group of user groups. The problem came when Gary Locke made his appointments and did so in total disregard for the letter and intent of the laws setting up the commission in the first place. Politics, commercial fishing lobbying (CASH) and back scratching won over good science and equal representation.

So don't point your finger squarely at the director or even the staff at WDFW. Get upset with the politics and join the fight to overturn the mess we are in. Keep the pressure on the commission but keep in mind that they don't like to be criticized and will pay the sports fishing community back in their own spiteful way. We still are being punished for the Bern Shanks era and some of the confrontational tactics user groups used against the commission and their commercial fishing allies. The tribes are also out there as the biggest factor in fish management by far. The fantastic fishing still going on in area 4 out of Neah Bay is a direct result of the efforts and clout of the Makah tribe, not the commission or the director.

Grandpa

Why not change the mandate of our WDFW? Wouldn't that force both the Director and the Commission to follow what the mandate states? It could be done by using the "initiative" process, which would jump over much of the political (but not all) hurdles.

We could use about 95% of the original wording that currently exists in RCW77.04.012 (Mandate of department and commission).

Why not use the laws that we have already in place, but just modify its wording?

It could read something like this:

"Wildlife, fish, and shellfish are the property of the state. The commission, director, and the department shall preserve, protect, perpetuate, and manage the wildlife and food fish, game fish, and shellfish in state waters and offshore waters.

The department shall conserve the wildlife and food fish, game fish, and shellfish resources in a manner that does not impair the resource. In a manner consistent with this goal, the department shall seek to maintain the economic well-being and stability of the [sport] fishing industry in the state. The department shall promote orderly fisheries and shall enhance and improve [the] recreational [opportunity] and [allow] commercial fishing [to occur when there is an abundance in stock size in the waters of] this state.

The commission may authorize the taking of wildlife, food fish, game fish, and shellfish only at times or places, or in manners or quantities, as in the judgment of the commission [that it] does not impair [or diminish the recreational opportunity, or jeopardize the supply of its natural resources.]

The commission shall attempt to maximize the public recreational game fishing and hunting opportunities of all citizens, including juvenile, disabled, and senior citizens.

Recognizing that the management of our state wildlife, food fish, game fish, and shellfish resources depends heavily on the assistance of volunteers, the department shall work cooperatively with volunteer groups and individuals to achieve the goals of this title to the greatest extent possible."

This new wording should even please wild fish advocates. It would change the priority of both the Commission and the Director, and still allow a limited commercial fishery when stock sizes were in abundance. People usually don't mind change if the change is not that much different then what already exists. This still allows commercial harvest, but favors the recreational user more. I think that the majority of people could be sold on something like this!

Well,

What do you think? Could this be the way to go?

Cowlitzfisherman

Too busy for an in depth answer but I think we as sports fishers need to come up with more inclusive ideas for c hange instead of things like the net ban which excluded a large uer group making us look like we were only concerned abot ourselves which was pretty much true. I thinnk paying more attention to all the studies on the benefits to the economy derived by sports fishing would be a good start instead of the commission ignoring the obvious.

IMO, pro-active ideas can help, and having a collective voice may be the way to get through this whole mess. But exposing the mismanagment and biased policies is the primary issue. Having a voice has not made much of an impact so far, and quite honestly i'm tired of being patient while everyone involved sets me up for the next disapointment! This system in its current form, has a long rich tradition of courruption! Expecting current dicision makers to switch to an agenda based on merit rather than money , votes, or power is unrealistic. History proves me right! The people making the decisions and policies must be independent of those who do not have the fish's welfare as thier agenda. Enforcing the collectivley created (previous) mandate would be a great starting point. It at least goes in the direction that actually represents the numerous interests of the states general population. Poor direction and mismanagement are the cause of the current state of affairs! There just HAS to be a better way!

Granpa,I sure hope you're not saying the war monger republicans are friends of the sportsmen or the environment. Agreed Locke has let us down on many issues but I would hate to see where we (sportsmen) would be with a republican gov

skydrifitin..I don't think I made a reference to a Republican in my posting. I mention Gary Locke because he is the governor now and has been the governor who has appointed the crummy commssioners we have had for awhile. The "war mongers" ,as you put it, probably would declare war on sports fishermen and put us all in camps for questioning without legal representation.

Think about this!!!!
There has been a tribal test fishery for Sockeye
just at the mouth of the waterway before the locks.Check the fish counts and you will see the big drop in numbers.I thought the tribes
were going to wait till they got the number of fish they needed in the lake first???We as sportman got the shaft again on the first day of the test fishery they got 15.000lbs how many fish does that equal???We motored around and marked a number of schools then went out a few days later and couldn't find a single school of fish. I am just pissed if they want to get this fishery going why do they keep raping the resourse. It's all about GREED!!!!!!

fishtale...

remember the enumclaw way when the nets are in the rivers... haybales not that id know anything about that.

but hey i remember reading somethin on the salmon university about how the tribes were the ones who actually brought back the sockeye runs in washington... i may be wrong but if im right, it kinda puts a turn on things.

curtis

The tribes , indeed, are very responsible for helping to restore the Sockeye fishery in Lake Washington. This is not a fishery that is native to the lake but is a fisheries that was planted there and it depends on sustaining support. With that said , I oppose the fishery outside the locks in the salt. This skews the fish counts for sure and gives a really false outlook on the real run strength. Different tribes fish outside the locks. The Muckleshoots are the ones helping with fish counts and such. Some of them fish in the ship canal as there are many historical "sites" along the canal. The fish are not historic to the canal but the tribes fish for many species that they did not historically harvest at the time of the treaties in 1855. In Alaska, for example the tribes are getting increasingly higher percentages of the King crab catch. Do you suppose they fished the remote Bering sea for those crabs in the 19th century? Did they fish for Sockeye in Lake Washington then? No.