Forget buy-backs, all the Dept has to do is not allow the sale/transfer of a commercial license when the licensee decides it is time to retire. It would take time, but eventually the licenses would disappear.....

You might run into a question of "taking". If the licenses have been sold/traded in the past then making them worthless (can't be moved) might be tricky.

They beat that topic of poor compliance to death in Edmonds meeting also.

The slide show was a little disturbing on the inequity of crab caught in region 1 with commercials taking 80% to 20% over sports.
If you consider region 3-1, 3-2, and 3-3 close to a wash over region 4,5,and 6 where commercials aren't allowed to crab, then that would leave about 1.2- 1.5 million lbs of crab that the commercials catch over sports mostly because of region 1.
I'll let the staff use the argument that region 1 is a big boat environment which they use as the reason, if they are willing to balance the overage in region 1 and redistribute to region 2 in two parts, conservation, and the other part more crab available for population base in that area.

Sport crabbers in Region 2 use up all allotment and more in summer and then have to move to another area farther away passing commercials crab boats to get to the closest open rec. winter crabbing destination. NOT RIGHT.

I'll hazard a guess that most of the folks on the water do the right thing at the right time. I have a little heart burn over "immediately" marking a crab with all the things going on when pulling/re-baiting/setting pots but we get it done. I think there is room for flexibility and common sense in enforcement.

I'm trying to dig up our issues with the previous report (2007, I think) from LE on compliance. There was considerable discussion with staff about their data collection and interpretation. The numbers were not used appropriately. I think they said there was a 60% violation rate based on the contacts made. They totaled all violations contacted and added in all warnings to come up with their numbers. What they couldn't tell us was the actual number of persons who rec'd a citation and how many charges/warnings those people got and they couldn't break out the warnings. It really skews the numbers when you don't have documentation and a broad brush is used to paint a whole group.

Aunty -
While I agree that the violation rate is probably over blown by the way the enforcement selects contacts or report the information the bottom line is that there is far too many violations. I don't recall time this year that I have return to the dock after crabbing that I have not seen at least some folks that were clearly wrong. A quick glance in folk's buckets reveal short crabs, females, crabs that were clearly soft, cleaned crabs without the back shell, etc. And of course I had no ideal how many were punched or not.

The sad reality is that until that we can achieve some sort of reasonable compliance with the sport crab regs non-compliance will constantly be thrown back in our faces. It will be hard to have meaningful discussions about management changes without the non-compliance issue derailing those discussions.

Tight lines
Curt

Tickets and license suspensions - that will bring about better compliance rates, but the statutes are sorely in need of being re-written so that the chronic violator(s) are removed from the field for a period of time ranging from 1 year to life.

There hasn't been much interest, by the agency in trying to do that. I've seen it work. Fines don't seem to bother most folks, but loss of license privileges - that's a hammer. In addition to a WA suspension, they would also be suspended in about 30 other states under the Wildlife Violator Compact of which WDFW is a member.

bushbear -
I agree with the idea of license suspensions for the chromic violators. The state actually started down that road with their Snow goose quality hunt program on Fir Island in Skagit county. There if one is convicted of one of several violations they lost their permit.

While it is probably that WDFW would need to get some sort of legislative approval to go for with such an approach. However that should not stop folks from pushing for that sort of action.

It is funny that you should bring this approach, earlier this week I was at a WDFW meeting where discussion of compliance in the western Washington Pheasant program came up and I suggestion this very approach to get the point across to those knot heads who just don't seem to get the message or just don't care. The agency response was as you would have expected.

Tight lines
Curt

Here's my view on the compliance issue: I believe there are recreational crabbers and sport crabbers. Nowadays crabbing opens during the nicer weather bringing out the ski and play type boats. These folks bring along the crab pots to drop while they run around and play. I think these are the recreational crabbers. Not really sportsman so to speak but do enjoy a few outdoor things from time to time but it's not a passion to them. They're inexperienced and unskilled but it doesn't take much skill to crab and be successful. They may have read the rules but a probably going by more hear-say then anything else. Along comes LE. They see a fancy $60k SeaRay with a couple hotties tanning on the bow and a couple jock straps out flexing their mussels. A perfect opportunity to swoop in and check out the eye candy close up and make the boyfriends look like douche bags as they write them a ticket for "soft and undersize."

Then I feel there is the sport crabber. These are the people like myself and many here. Fishing and crabbing are a passion and a way of life. I have a copy of the regs and a tide book on my desk at work, come Monday morning I'm already planning the next weekend. These will be the people in fishing boats. So to me it would be pretty easy to figure who has a better chance of being in compliance.

So yeah I think it's easy to pick out who's who out there. I feel if they ran a compliance check during the winter fishery the results would drastically from the summer ones. Simply because you've removed all the recreational crabbers from the equation.

Dave here's one from '05

Violation Arrest Warning Total

Undersized 48 24 72
Over Limit 15 1 16
Soft Shell 1 30 31
Fail to Record 48 78 126
Gear 3 3 6
License 5 9 14
Fishing 28 25 53
Other 22 5 27

Total 170 175 345

Dock hours 50
Boat hours 266
Total contacts 879
Crab citations 120
Total citations 170
Crab warnings 125
Total warnings 175

Crab compliance rate 70%
Total compliance rate 63%

Donno

There is some merit to what you say, but 30 years in the field have taught me that not all is as it might appear. Oftentimes, the fancy boats/gear have a higher compliance rate than the plainer boats/gear. It is easier to blend if you look like the majority.

As for the LE data, it is my opinion that it was not properly applied to the recreational/sport crabbers. The Dept has used the total numbers to calculate a "violation" rate. They lump citations and warnings without breaking out the actual number of folks who got tickets. It is possible/probable/likely that one person might get a citation (ticket) and 2 warnings. Others might get 3 citations and no warnings. We know that the universe contacted was 879, but how many actually were charged? The presumption is a warning or a citation equals one person and that most likely isn't the case. It might have been 170 people that accumulated all the charges/warnings in which case the violation rate out of 879 drops to 19% or an 81% compliance rate. If you do just the crab citations, the violation rate drops to 14% or 86% compliance.

I think you also need to look at the type of violation. Over limits and under-sized are, IMHO, more serious than soft shell. Soft shell on a legal crab is going to give a person a poor quality meal, but if one is happy with that level of quality and stops when the limit is reached - is that a problem?

Fail to record is a record keeping issue, like failing to tag a big game animal. When a person is on the water, there are items that have to be handled as pots are pulled and stacked or re-baited and re-set. If a person pulls a pot and finds one legal crab and then marks it on the CRC with ink or indelible pencil and after pulling the second pot with no legal crab(s) and then decides to not make the effort to clean cook one crab, what happens if the one crab is released? You can't erase the record and when you send in your CRC, the crab will be credited to the total take even though it was released. If the requirement was that all crab to be possessed must be recorded before reaching the beach or ramp and a check was made on the water, as long as the boat limit isn't exceeded is there a problem?

If someone decides to double dip (going out for multiple limits and take the risk not to record the catch, when the shore is reached and a contact is made - then there are options available to the LE officer ranging from failure to record to illegal possession or if mulitple trips are observed logged, then possibly more serious charges might be laid.

Smalma

I've proposed re-writes that would outline a much more effective way to handle tickets and suspensions to staff. The current statutes allow for a suspension based on the number of tickets acquired within a certain time frame. I think the violations should carry varying point levels and when one exceeds the threshold, one gets to a chance to explain why his/her license privileges should not be suspended. Guidelines can be easily developed for a hearing officer that gives latitude from probation to suspension for a varying number of years up to life time depending on what the charges were. A person would/could carry points for up to 5 years from date of the violation/conviction. If the person remains violation free for 5 years, the points drop off and the potential for suspension drops.

The law against keeping soft shell crab should be done away with. If the crab is of legal size it'll probably be caught sooner or later anyway. While I wouldn't keep it I wouldn't care if someone else does. One sentence in the regs explaining what soft shell is and that they don't provide the best table fare would be enough. Keeping that fourth "S" in the management does nothing for the resource.

Would or do they allow observers on the patrol boats? It would be interesting to see first hand what goes on. Not to criticize or judge but to come to your own conclusions on compliance. Numbers and percentages can be read so many different ways as you pointed out.

Donno -
Some interesting information.

A question - are those dock and boat hours the same as officer hours broken out as whether they were shore or boat base?

If so does it concern anyone that in 316 hours only 879 contacts were made (2.8/hour)? It would seem to support that idea that enforcement is spending time watch and "highgrading" their contacts. Which of course is fine but it would skew the compliance rates estimates.

Tight lines
Curt

The hours are equivalent to 39+ man-days. Not sure if it includes travel time to and from the work site(s). I would surminse that the average contact time is probably 10 minutes or so per legal vessel and 20-30 minutes per vessel when citations/warnings/explanations are being made.

The contacts were probably not "random". It is more time effective to watch a group or an individual before contact is made to verify that they are actively engaged in the licensed activity.

I would say that there were at least two and probably 3 officers per patrol vessel. If one of the larger patrol vessels, like the Guffler, was used, then there would be one or two officers on board it. They could be doing the observation and directing the smaller contact boat(s).

If one assumes an average of four people per vessel contacted, that almost 220 vessels contacted - just under 1 per hour. That is probably pretty close considering run time from contact to contact has to be included in the hours logged.

If you factor out travel time to and from home to the work site, the contact rate/hour do increase some.

To me whether LE observe by glasses on the water or WSP observes with radar on I-5 the rate when stopped should be extremely high on tickets or warnings written ----VS --- a random stop.

If you're doing an emphasis patrol, you're looking for specific issues vs random field contacts which won't/shouldn't have as high a violation rate. The problem arises when emphasis patrol numbers are used to paint a picture of compliance rates. They are skewed and it doesn't make that portion of the fishing community look good since the brush is very broad...

Dave,

I have the email exchanges between you and WDFW LE where they admitted the "Compliance Rate" was basically BullChit and further said they were going to change their ways. Should I post it so they will crawl back under their rocks.

Remember that the SAO's audit report of the WDFW Dungeness crab program made a point of calling WDFW LE procedures as being directed toward probable violators and, therefore, the WDFW LE's violation statistics were not being reliable to be applied to the recreational crabbing community as a whole.

Not only is it in the audit report but it is also reiterated in the SAO's response to our public input at the JLARC hearing.

Here is an instance where we can use the SAO's report to our advantage!

Larry

Just got my Washington CCA Electronic WhazzUp, and the number two article is "How" Washington CCA is helping in the "Allocation Fairness" Crab Game. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, seems to me that CCA is quite a bit LATE in the game on this issue, and a couple of years ago was not the least bit interested in it at all (and I do have the emails). I suggest to CCA that they politely and respectfully take the seat in the back and DO NOT CLAIM any credit (unless it is LarryB representing CCA). I still pay my dues but still not happy about what did NOT occur.

There are two Larry B. One from Elma and one from U District. One did volunteer to head up the crab committee, about six months ago. I really dont care if an org comes in and throws a "Hale Mary" pass as long as the issue is resolved. Nothing prevents the other organizations from posting their efforts on their website and let members know, they are doing the work. You dont have to cut the ribbon, to prove you help build the ship.

Aside from what Marsha pointed out, I find it frustrating to hear someone complain about what cca did not do. Its a freaking volunteer organization. If people with the knowledge will not volunteer, than dont bitch when it doesnt get done. For every volunteer doing work at the ground level, more work is created for oversight, research, planning, meetings, reports, phone calls etc for those who have graciously taken on that role which is usually one chairman, who is also working on other projects, involving salmon or ground fish or habitat, Marine protection areas, etc. Growing pains happen at every level of every committee. If you want to do more you have to find the people with the passion and the time. Only recently have they expanded the mgt of projects by area, so that we dont have to go back to one manager and beat him until he gives up retirement and all his activities.

Those who complain about seeing nothing done, or expecting the miracles of banning all gillnets, tearing down dams (in a short year or two) are typical of investors who expect high returns for a few dollars invested. Something for nothing. Donate all the money in the world, wont get anything done if there are not enough volunteers who will go do the research and go to the meetings where the decisions get made.

Like I have stated on other threads ,and now this crab thread, that I appreciate the work that has been done in the past up to the future by those involved. The more organizations and people involved the better the chance to right a wrong of inequity of imbalance of allocation of crab between commercial and sport. Hopefully this will be attained in the near future by working together and not against each other.