Just when I was about to lose all faith in the WDFW, they appear to have come out of the recent sessions with some decisions that not only make sense, they may actually enhance some fishing. What a novel concept!

According to Barbara Lindsay, the Legislature recently passed the following items: (among others)

- $3.5 million for enforcement (hire back all the guys they laid off last year, an then some)

- $3.7 million reallocated to Grandy Creek Hatchery. Huh?

- $9.3 million for commercial fishing buy-back program. Yeah!

- $300,000 for by catch monitoring of non-Indian recreational and commercial fisheries.

Also according to Lindsay there is still $111 million in spending or salmon recovery grants still to be decided in the upcoming special session, this Monday and Tuesday. This is the last gasp for the Reiter summer run facility. She said that all the e-mailing, faxing, telephone calls, and general bitching helped get funding on a lot items..... except the hatchery programs. The hatchery cuts (Reiter) and SB-5000 were the only were the only "crucial" items not passed during the session.

It even appears that there may be some harmony in Olympia finally, with morale a little higher with Koenings at the reigns.

In his 1 million word essays "Waldo" did make three valid points.

1. He prefers Siberia to the Northwest

2. There are less steelhead and salmon than
there was 100 year ago.

3. If someone does a crappy job of managing
something for 50 years (like WDFW has,
be they seperate or whole)they should be
fired.

He was right. Let's hope they start making steps in the right direction by enhancing fisheries, not destroying them.

TK