Granpa,
Do you need assistance filling out pettitions for the shelfish issue talked about on the Wallace access page.

I'm sure I could fill one page here at the office. If you need help just say the word and point me in the direction of a blank pettition...

Send me an email thru the board or just reply here...

There is a meeting tonight in Port Townsend to finalize the game plan and petition to save our sports crabbing rights. We will be posting the petitions on line on several bulletin boards. We will also figure out how to distribute hard copies. This kind of grass roots effort is what we, the sportsmen and women need to start doing to counteract the embedded control of our natural resources and fish and wildlife by WDFW commissioners and their commercial fishing cronies. We need to expose the abuses to the general public and not just the diehards. We can do it. We need to make these people accountable for their incredibly biased decisions that effect our right to harvest fish and shellfish.

Thanks Grandpa

You can count on my support.

Hey G'Pa......

Having grown up in Everett and still making the long trip back home a couple times a year just to crab has me very interested in this issue. I have become so frustrated with the short, then shorter season, and actually planned a vacation this summer only to be able to crab for 2 days before it closed. Has anyone involved in this petition drive addressed the issue of commercials having the ability to crab in the ocean, whereas most sportsmen do not have the means to do so? I really believe that with the dwindling stocks in Puget Sound and the indians 50% allotment being exercised to the fullest now, that Puget Sound crabbing should be reserved for the sportsmen that do the majority of supporting this fishery.....

Just my $ .02 worth (I could go on a rant but will refrain)......

MC

So right Aunty, "Protectionism" at it's finest.....
Anybody presently working on that aspect of the fishery? If something is not done soon, not too far off in the future will be a "no crabbing" moritorium because of low stocks... I can see it coming.....
Better start getting used to that synthetic crab meat I guess..... Yuuch!

MC

The issue of crabbing is only part of the shellfish problem. Shrimping has been "discovered" by sports fishers so now we harvest too many and are intervening on the traditional beds of the handful of commercial shrimpers. The tribes are getting into the act and are slaughtering the shrimp. And my favorite, Geoduck. The tribes pay nothing to the state to harvest the extremely valuable shellfish while the non-indian harvester must bid on the right to harvest a quota and pay a fortune for that right. Geoduck are not harvested by sports divers but the situation with Geoduck is a symptom of what is going on. Too many pigs at the trough.

We are trying to get 10,000 signatures on our petitions to save sport crabbing in Puget Sound. We will be posting petitions and how to get the filled ones back so we can assemble all of them for the December WDFW commission meeting in Port Townsend. Remember that when these people divide the pie you must be at the table or you get no pie.

Oh I'm sure they have their eyes on the larger and more plentiful crab in Hood Canal. I heard someone on the radio discussing derelict gear in Puget Sound in their context of creating more marine sanctuaries and even those extremists were focussing on sports fishing. They went on and on about the nylon fishing line stuck on the bottom and how much damage that does to marine life....No mention of commercial overharvest and greed. Since salmon prices are so poor there is more emphasis on higher priced seafood like crab and shrimp and geoduck. It looks like the shellfish industry is trying to force the sports fishers out of the Sound.

Grandpappy, where should we send the signed petitions?

If you guys really just want more days to crab, all that needs to be done is reduce the limit to say 4 crab a person.

I guess the WDFW didn't learn there lesson the first time the commercials decimated hood canal.... we are still paying the price for that...



If this happens I'm hiring al-queida... Anyone know if anti aircraft missles work against commercial boats too?

Won't work - you need a heat source like turbine engines. What you really need, if you're gonna use al Queda methods, are some good ol' fashioned RPGs. Not real accurate, but they'll get the job done. Or we could strap some C-4 to a seal and train it to swim over to the commercial's boat then detonate. Kill two birds with one stone, sorta.

Just a thought.

id rather have a seal around than a commercial anyday, what about remote controlled dive bomb seagulls..kamikaze birds..??

Grampy,

As you know, I am on board with this effort.

Regarding Puget Sound spot shrimp: It was the sport shrimpers that, for the most part, discovered that shrimp even existed in PS.

Now, in area 9, sport shrimpers have a few days to shrimp while commercial gear can be seen most of the summer.

The state's system of allocating quotas is completely arbitrary and based on nothing except what the people in charge feel like doing for the commercial lobbyists.

The Great and Powerful Slab is on board...You know you can use that pot puller for pulling people out of the ditch this winter if it snows.

You are kidding.. Right????

If they did that, they would just increase the amount of days or quota that the commercials get.. Guaranteed!
Since when has cutting our bag limit ever been a positive thing for us in the sound? Look at the bottomfishing..... The commercials nearly decimated the Rockfish population, then we could not fish for them. Now, it is a limit of 1 rockfish/day for us (hardly worth paying for the lures) and the commercials are still at it....

MC