Late breaking news still developing:

Today the Makah tribe nearly doubled moorage rates for all non-tribal charter boats operating out of Neah Bay. The tribe also imposed a 10% tax on the charter operation's gross receipts and threatened to collect BEFORE the boats would be allowed to leave the dock.

This is a blatant attempt to take the business away from hard working charter operators because they are non-indian. Imagine the reverse happening anywhere outside the reservation. Imagine if we were to charge the indian boats tied up on the public docks at Everett selling their shrimp, crab and fish a tax like this. The news media would have an absolute field day.

Needless to say the charters are pulling up stakes and leaving Neah Bay. If you have a halibut charter booked after today be sure to check with your skipper to see if it is cancelled or still on only departing from a different port of call.

Perhaps give a second thought to supporting the extorionist Makahs....sorry but that's how it looks to me.

Who paid for the multi-million dollar facility they have up there?

It would take 100 years for the local economy to pay for a facility like that, so I don't think it came out of the UW business school.

Must have been some eccentric old fisherman with a Bill Gates type fortune to bestow upon the native man.

I'm sure it will cost a little extra in fuel,But Sekiu would love to host the charter fleet.The charters would then have to up the price per trip to off set the extra fuel.Good luck,
STRIKE ZONE

I did the phone call out to a charter out of Neah Bay last night when I was told this from a member. First call was to Wendy, who is no longer the business manager at Big Salmon. I will post as soon as I investigate more. This has nothing to do with the personal sport boats, just non tribal sport charters.

It would be completely unethical for the Makahs to impose these fees on the charter operators after they have their seasons set-up.

I hope this little stunt gets the bad press it deserves and backfires on the tribe.

It certainly makes me want to avoid spending a dime at Neah Bay this year, even though I know that many (if not most) of the NB businesses are not run by tribal members.

Westport, here I come.

If this is all true, they will be out lot's of money in hotel / gas / food.As people will not come or will support the Sekiu businesses.I'd rather see Sekiu get the money any way's.Good luck,
STRIKE ZONE

I dont see why we would have to pay tribal taxes for moorage. The dont pay state or federal taxes. All they do is go right up to the tellers hand them a card and get everything tax free but they want the charters to pay them, that is just ludacris. I have a feeling that the indians are going to have alot of moorage opening up pretty soon

I'll stay in Sekiu and pay for the extra fuel to run out to tatoosh/dunkin etc.If that's how they're gonna treat our brothers.Good luck,
STRIKE ZONE

Just to let everyone know that it is mainly Joey Lawrence and the new owner of Big Salmon pushing this. The new main owner is a guy from Forks. Both are owners. The Makaws are backing them. I made the phone call last night to Neah Bay to give Grandpa this info at our PSA meeting. A member came forward and told me this. I immediately went outside and started calling as I spend a lot of time at Neah Bay every year. I called a guide to find this out as Wendy is no longer there at Big Salmon. She was the business manager for the last couple of years. I could not get a hold of Joey yesterday or today. I called a friend of mine that runs a motel there and is on the PFMC for getting the Salmon allocation for area 4. He filled me in that everything stated sounds correct. A big Westport charter boat showed up unannounced and is there with their other boat, the Advantage. (this is part of the incident that started it) They do their own booking as some of the other bigger ones do. Big Salmon nor Neah Bay get a chunk of it. The regular Neah Bay Charters use local places to book them (this is already costing them). The 10% of their gross that Big Salmon wants will kill the smaller charters. It is to be paid up front monthly, as being required by Big Salmon. These charters have been using Makaw Fuel instead of Big Salmon's fuel. The fuel is cheaper there. Big Salmon makes a lot of money on fuel as they mark it up quite a bit. I think they were $.65 per gallon higher than Westport last year, and about the same higher than on the street gas stations. Big Salmon, besides the 10% gross they want from the charters, they are increasing the charter moorage from $2.95 per foot to $5.95 a foot. Also all charter passengers will have to check in at Big Salmon before going on the boats. They threw down the papers to the charters and told them sign it or leave. Big Salmon is trying to get the stronghold of Neah Bay again. Some have left and what I understand today maybe they are softening and will possibly go back and have a discussion tomorrow. This is not going to, supposedly, effect the private sport boats. But if it plays out bad, ultimately, it could start reallocating fish quotas in area 4. When they started with the permit to be on Makaw land a few years ago, friends of mine refused to but food or anything from Neah Bay that they did not absolutely have to. They used to buy everything from them. Does anybody remember back when LaPush burned down the buildings and ran the white man out. They became sorry very quickly when the money left with it. Is Neah Bay on the same track?
This saddens me very deeply as I spend about 3 weeks a year (for the past 10 years) out there and I know a lot of the charters and local businesses in Neah Bay that have nothing to do with this.

Tossing out racial innuendos will not help the situation. I'l back up the sport fleet with whatever needs to be done. Organize a rally to Big Salmon? Letters and phone calls explaining the monetary loss to the local businsses if we boycott the fishery? Need some proactive ideas.

I had booked a Hali charter out of NB with Jambo's for this comming Sunday to fish Canadian waters. This will be most likely the last time I set foot onto Makah land. I phoned Mike from Jambo's & he confirmed what has been said on this thread. He's not too happy. This is unfortunate cause the Non-Tribal Guides are going to suffer the most. I am going to stop by Big Salmon & give them a Big Raspberry on my way out. I will let them know they just lost my Summer King Biz. Westport should be pretty happy about all this!

I swear, right here, I WILL NOT SPEND A DIME ON THAT RES!

I would just as soon see the charters operate out of waters that are less protected than Seiku. There are plenty of folks that fish there on their own because they can with smaller boats.

I don't think there needs to be a commercial sport fishery there. It would get even more crowded pretty quick. If they just based out of there and fished Neah Bay, that would be great.

Anybody know if any Makahs run charters themselves? If not the Makahs are really shooting themselves in the foot. Just when they seemed to be catering to fishermen more and trying to make Neah Bay a more desirable destination they do something stupid like this.

I sure would like to hear their side of the story to weigh what has happened from both perspectives.

This is information from Mike Gilchrist...

There are no "tribal" charters...there are tribal members who run charters, but they are state licensed charter operations, not tribal charters.

The tribe has some sort of "contractor" relationship with Big Salmon, and it is Big Salmon's policy that is being described here in this thread.

Either contact Mike for the details, or I'll try to get some more information and post it here...

Fish on...

Todd

Thanks Todd, I did not have time this afternoon to cross post but you covered the basics.

The main thing that needs to be understood is that this is not a situation with the Makah throwing all the charters out of Neah Bay. It is a disagreement between a some of the charters (not all) that opperates out of Neah bay and policy put forward by big salmon.

I expect that it will work itself out one way or another and there will still be a charter fleet in Neah Bay.

Got a message from another buddie who is a charter out of Neah Bay. He says do not boycott Neah Bay, as he believes the Makahs have nothing to do with it and it is Big Salmon doing it. He said there is a lot of bad and misinformation going on out there and it is a complex issue or can of worms. I suspect there might be something coming down between the Makahs and Big Salmon. Last year when a fish and chips dinner was $18.00, and breakfast for two was $40.00 at the Makah Maiden restaurant on the Halibut opener (May) we decided that in July not to do business with the restaurant on our main vacation. By July, Jody was gone an prices were cheaper than they had been in a while. The Makahs did not renew her contract and decided to run it themselves and did a good job at it. Lets wait to see what is going on.

Big Salmon is the instigator but doing it with the blessing of the Makah tribe. Thats what is upsetting. If this situation isn't remedied or reversed, I WILL boycott. Since I've already spent my $$ for this weekend, I'm going, but it will be the last. Plenty of other places to fish where I feel I will get a fair deal & non-tribal charters are given a chance to compete.

Eveyone needs to read the regulations when you start talking about using Sekiu to fish from. Unless arae 5 (Sekiu) is open for Halibut you CANNOT land any Halibut from area 4 (Neah Bay) there. So that shoots down that idea until May 27th. It's all there on the first page of the marine rules. As a side note if there are fewer people fishing out there then there are fewer eyes to see just how much draging is going on outside by the Makah fishery!!!!! Just my 2 cents.

Those huge bottom-trawling ships operated by the Makah Nation do more damage than all the other tribal activities put together IMO. After a fun day of fishing, it's kinda sickening to pass those giant ocean-rapers on your way back to the marina. I wonder how much money they actually make - probably not much. Certainly not enough to justify the damage they create.

On a positive note, I always enjoyed the fish cleaning service on the dock. It's entertaining to watch the proficient young men and you can't beat $.25 per seabass. Also, I appreciate that they tow all the guts and carcasses away instead of dumping them at the dock.

But I'm proceeding with my personal boycott. If Big Salmon wanted to change the rules, they should have presented their proposal to the charters last fall. Extortion is the word for what they are doing now.

GP2. One boat is owned by a tribal member, but is skippered by a man out of Port Townsend. Other than that, no, there is no tribal run charters out of Neah Bay.

This "Charter oppurtunity package" was drafted by the private owners of Big Salmon, and not the tribe itself. They opperate the marina, and book trips for some of the boats. And it is extortion, imo.

I'll have more info to contrubute to this topic later.

J.D.