If only 15 people are attending the meetings it sounds to me like the fvcking system is broken...

pehaps its time to find a new way to solicit feedback from the casual anglers... how about a NOF survey form with the purchase of every saltwater licence.

Totally agree with this post! What if any in season adjustments might be made off the "paper" forecast? Inquiring minds want to know tonight!

The state could get all the feedback they wanted, and then some, if they actually GAF. They don't care what we think, they only care in so far as to keep their jobs. Keep kicking the can, it's what politics does best. That's why the Indians have the state (us) by the balls. The Indians are united in their goal of shutting us out. We have impotence and culturally hypersensitive pusssies representing us.

What would you know about a "fvcking" system being broken? you are the guy that called out the responsible fishermen who choose to get involved in the process. I don't think you have done ANYTHING to improve the situation. If you attended ONE meeting you would know that we are not "rich fvckers". As far as why you are "pissed", i could give a fvck about your opinions. Tell it to the state instead of trashing folks who choose to try and change things for the better. If I was a "casual angler" I'd be more inclined to attend meetings in my particular "pond" like all the "casual anglers" did for the 4/3 policy in Greys Harbor. There must have been 100 or more folks at the meetings last year. I'm sure you would just toss any survey forms the state supplied you with anyway. You have no friends among the responsible anglers who actually advocate for their fisheries insteading of blindly bitching .Bob R

Well this thread has certainly taken a turn for the worse. So typical however, recreational anglers griping at one another instead of working for a common goal of more and better sport fishing opportunity. And the ridiculous conspiracy theories add a nice touch, if nice touch means a group not to be taken seriously.

Bob, People are pisssed and rightfully so. My hat's off to those with the time and flexibility of schedule to attend the meetings. The problem isn't that enough folks don't attend the meetings or voice their opinions, it's that the state doesn't GAF about us or our opinions. I've written, called and spoken with the mucky mucks with the same dismissive attitude and canned response. If the state wasn't required to at least allow people time for open comment they wouldn't waste their time pretending to GAF what we think. We elect folks to represent us and look out for our interests so that WE don't have to do their jobs for them. The system is broken, that much is very obvious, our elected officials prefer to pander to the tribes while their constituents take it up the ass AGAIN!

Thanks to all that are actively involved but I have to ask: If public input is so important what has the state done that indicates they listened to that input? This year and last year the state turned its back on us. Is that what the public input represented? Pandering to tribes and screwing over the other 99.5%?

The money politicians receive from the tribes speaks far louder than anything a politicians constituency asks. Politicians don't care about their record because the public has a short memory, they only care about money $$$$.

Anyone involved with or with more knowledge of NOF negotiations then myself know the answers to my question?
Thanks,
SF

What the tribes taketh away, the tribes never givith back...
without getting something else in return.

Truer words were never written! The frustration is palpable in these posts! Hear that? It's our collective voices crying out in the wilderness...

Does anyone know more about the horse trading behind the reduction of MA11's blackmouth season by 2 months? I know the tribes generally don't like our blackmouth fishery, but I am wondering about the details of this particular closure. It seems very specific. There's not going to be an appreciable number of coho around MA11 in Nov-Dec.

WDFW needs to walk accross the hall and talk to WSDOT and find out how they reach out and solicit feedback from the people:

I get these surveys in email 4-5 times a year, and this came into my inbox this morning. Most of the time the surveys are about the highway system and how the budget should be spent:


Dear Mr. Franklin,

In a three days, the Washington State Transportation Commission (WSTC) will be sending you and 30,000 other members of the Voice of Washington State (VOWS) a link to a short survey on your use and views of the Washington State Ferry System (WSF).

We welcome your help in getting people involved. Please pass this email along to friends and family and encourage them to join VOWS so they too can help shape the future of Washington’s statewide transportation system as well.

All they need to do to sign up and receive the VOWS survey is click on the link below:

Voice of Washington State

We appreciate you sharing your views via the VOWS surveys and thank you for your continued participation.


Anne Haley, Chairman
Washington State Transportation Commission
http://wstc.wa.gov/

It may just be an exception, but the folks in Greys Harbor stepped up, many people attended meetings, many more commented on line or by snail mail, and 4 days in river 3 days out of river (
Chehalis River) for non- tribal gill netters. That means that they (non-tribal) gill netters won't have nets in the river 7 days out of the week. Some would say that that's not enough restrictions, but as my lovely wife says, "you have to eat that elephant one bite at a time.
We advocated for lifting the restrictions at lowland lakes to remove limit catches to only two fish over 14 inches. With most fish pushing 14 inches as a rule on certain lakes it was not a good rule. It was changed due to comments by my wife and I as well as others.
Frustration with the way the state manages our resource is understandable, attacking other fisherpersons that are more involved with changing the system then you (and I DO mean you, Piper!) is Bullsh#t, he can take his "frustration" and shove it where it will do the most good, down his own throat! We spend our valuable spare time advocating for us all and we get this? Quotes about "crying out in the wilderness"? Show up in numbers and voice your opinions. It does work some of the time. Explore some of the other great fishing our state has to offer as a way to deal with salmon frustration.
Continue to pressure our "elected" officials with the same zeal you apply to salmon fishing. Push for campaign reform so the same s.o.b.'s have term limits and push for public funding of elections so money won't control who gets in. Lofty goals for sure, but if we don't fix it as voters it never will be fixed. Bob R

Fair point, Piper.

I think WDFW's feedback problem is not that they don't collect any, but rather that they don't (or perhaps can't) do anything in response. I've said before that the meaningful decisions are made outside the NOF proceedings, and that's where it all goes to hell for the sporties. Between that disconnect and the tribal advantages inherent in the process, while we do have numerous ways to provide feedback and get involved in the process, sporties don't have any power to affect the key outcomes. Assuming sport fishers are intended to be among the key stakeholders in the process (I don't assume that), it's clearly broken. On that, we should all agree, whether we go to meetings or not.

Bob's right, too. If we want justice (whether that means fish or fairness), we're going to have to join together and seize it. Now then... how to go about getting everyone to join together?...

the problem of getting everyone in the sport fisheries together is people don't care about the other fisheries that aren't there's .. I see it at the meetings in Monte one wants the bay another wants upriver and the other in river .. We do need to get together !!!

For those who have offered their "no one listens" opinions in this thread I ask if you attended any of the Washington's Wild Future initiative meetings? I did and it was packed with concerned citizens to include non-hunters/fishers (glad the fire department wasn't there counting heads). Here is a link where you can get the summary of comments: http://wdfw.wa.gov/publications/01768/wdfw01768.pdf. They definitely heard that NOF is a broken process.

And here is a link to the Commission's agenda for its 10/11 June meeting in Olympia: http://wdfw.wa.gov/commission/meetings/2016/06/agenda_jun1016.html. Note that they have three opportunities for general public comments; early and late on Friday and early on Saturday which is a short session. I think it would be very appropriate for the Commission to host an after action session with the Department staffers and stakeholders to try and clear the air over some of the ongoing perceptions (right or wrong) of how we (again) seem to have taken the short end of the stick.

Finally, here is the email link to the Commission: commission@dfw.wa.gov as well as the "Contact Us" webpage: http://wdfw.wa.gov/commission/contact.html.

Why does the WDFW not heavily recruit the world-class talent that comes out of the #1 fisheries school in the nation? Why do most of those talented graduates tend to work for NOAA or other agencies? You'd think WDFW would be camped out at the doors...especially around this time of year when a lot of world class talent is graduating.

I don't think the data is outdated. The tribes or the state has the data. WDFW is outdated on their models/science and seems to be a bit lacking in the ability to get them updated. The talent is there and in place, but generally their ideas are squashed by upper management.

As was mentioned before....the WDFW can have the best modeler, quantitative guru, genomics expert in the world, but if their bosses don't/won't listen to them due to their own career gains and/or political agenda, that talent goes to waste, or put to use on other projects.

Add in a lot of politics and bureaucracy and I'd say that's your answer.

As to hiring it's certainly a budget/FTE issue. One young UW fisheries graduate I know worked years for WDFW as a test fisher (temp slot) before finally landing a full time job with WDFW.

The Federal agencies have bigger budgets and more employees meaning more openings each year than WDFW plus a much wider and career challenging set of issues for an up an comer.

And then there are the politics, bureaucracy and the related inertia that is difficult to overcome.

Amen

I think a couple examples were already addressed, including the Baker Lake and Skagit river sockeye fishery. As for this year, I don't see how you can call what the state did "turning its back" on sportfishermen. I think they heard how pissed people were with, e.g., the MA 10 king closure last year, and decided to stand up for more equitable sharing this year. They didn't get everything that everyone would have wanted, but I think they got more than they would have had they just rolled over.