WDFW did not request funding for a 2027 Skagit-Sauk season
- Thread starter ChrisC
- Start date
Many people feel this way. Imagine if we formed a group and worked with the state to raise funds that helped our cause. Be pretty rad right? It could provide funds for enforcement. Money for facilities like pit toilets at certain lakes or boat ramps. Stuff that would help other outdoor recreation.
Well, a group of off-roaders did that. The NMA (Northwest Motorcycle Association and a few others helped get NOVA- The Nonhighway & Offroad Activities program created in the mid-1970’s to provide funding assistance to federal and state agencies for the planning, acquisition, development and management of land and facilities for ATV use.
They were very successful. Built trails with state and federal input. As responsible a group that the state could hope for.
I benefitted since I was a dirt biker. Rode cool trails with friends and family. Competed in the NMA enduro series a couple years. It was fun times and I saw the benefits to wild places since the crazy dirt bikers had their own places to ride. Nice places to ride.
Guess what the state did? They stole $9.5M from NOVA in 2009. WOHVA (Washington Off-Highway Vehicle Association) sued the state for the theft. The case went to the WA Supreme court. Of the 9 judges, 3 agreed with the state for the theft, 2 thought the case was moot and 4 judges agreed with WOHVA. WOHVA lost. NOVA never got that $9.5M back. The funds were used for whatever the state wanted to do...mostly to fund state parks. Yeah, the parks that cost $$ to even visit.
The state will do same damn thing to any other group when the going gets tough. Oh, you stick fish in the face for fun? Well, we know 4 or 5 judges that would rule in our favor no problem. We are NOT environmentalists. We are users of a resource that the state has to "manage" just like any other program. They don't care about you.
I vote green. I've voted Democrat more times than I've voted Republican. It doesn't matter. This state doesn't care about ANY group when times get tough. Lots of people think groups like WTA are safe. I wouldn't count on it if things get bad.
I won't be joining any group that volunteers funds to the state for any cause. They get enough of our money. It's not our fault they don't know how to manage it.
Ok, I'm going to go tie some carp flies....
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Pink Nighty
Legend
Washington is and always will be a resource extraction state. We are currently the resource de jour.
Trying to stay within the side boards again . . .
As reported in several venues, WA gov't. doesn't have a revenue problem. WA gov't. has a spending problem. This includes WDFW. WA gov't. is taking in more tax and other source revenue than ever, by billions of dollars. Yet state gov't. has a huge budget gap, resulting in the Legislature and state agencies enacting numerous funding reductions. With all those billions of dollars coming in, obviously funding is not being cut back on everything.
WDFW has choices about where to spend its funding. It's not like the legislative appropriations are line item directed down to the last biologist, technician, or bag of hatchery fish feed. The Director and managers choose what to spend the Department's money on. They have chosen to not fund the Quicksilver Portfolio, which is the bucket they use to fund fishery monitoring, like for the Skagit steelhead season. They do choose to raise hatchery coho and Chinook salmon that will largely be caught in Canada, and those that return to WA waters are more likely to be caught in non-treaty and treaty commercial fisheries than in recreational fisheries, even though the money that funds the production of those hatchery salmon comes mainly from purchasers of recreational licenses and taxpayers, with a small pittance coming from those who harvest most of the fish. It's about choices. WDFW chooses against recreational angling, putting it last. WDFW literally bites the hand that feeds it.
As reported in several venues, WA gov't. doesn't have a revenue problem. WA gov't. has a spending problem. This includes WDFW. WA gov't. is taking in more tax and other source revenue than ever, by billions of dollars. Yet state gov't. has a huge budget gap, resulting in the Legislature and state agencies enacting numerous funding reductions. With all those billions of dollars coming in, obviously funding is not being cut back on everything.
WDFW has choices about where to spend its funding. It's not like the legislative appropriations are line item directed down to the last biologist, technician, or bag of hatchery fish feed. The Director and managers choose what to spend the Department's money on. They have chosen to not fund the Quicksilver Portfolio, which is the bucket they use to fund fishery monitoring, like for the Skagit steelhead season. They do choose to raise hatchery coho and Chinook salmon that will largely be caught in Canada, and those that return to WA waters are more likely to be caught in non-treaty and treaty commercial fisheries than in recreational fisheries, even though the money that funds the production of those hatchery salmon comes mainly from purchasers of recreational licenses and taxpayers, with a small pittance coming from those who harvest most of the fish. It's about choices. WDFW chooses against recreational angling, putting it last. WDFW literally bites the hand that feeds it.
You already pay, yearly. Like everything else in the economy you pay more and get less.
Pink Nighty
Legend
Radical proposal:
Starting March 15, there's 46 days of fishing until April 30. Projections was 4225, which to my mouth says 2250 steelhead could be caught and released this season.
To put 3 "monitors" on the river every day, that's 138 monitor days. Someone from marblemount to concrete, someone for the upper sauk, someone from the lower sauk. Driving loops to pullouts and takeouts and collecting encounter data.
We create volunteer monitors and staff it. Personally I have every weds from 10am-3pm and every other Tuesday on the same schedule. We go fishing and do the job they decided not to fund. We respect every law and rule put in place, and be prepared to present our findings in court (and pay each others fines!!!!!!) if it needs doing.
Smash that follow button for more pescaranarchy!
Starting March 15, there's 46 days of fishing until April 30. Projections was 4225, which to my mouth says 2250 steelhead could be caught and released this season.
To put 3 "monitors" on the river every day, that's 138 monitor days. Someone from marblemount to concrete, someone for the upper sauk, someone from the lower sauk. Driving loops to pullouts and takeouts and collecting encounter data.
We create volunteer monitors and staff it. Personally I have every weds from 10am-3pm and every other Tuesday on the same schedule. We go fishing and do the job they decided not to fund. We respect every law and rule put in place, and be prepared to present our findings in court (and pay each others fines!!!!!!) if it needs doing.
Smash that follow button for more pescaranarchy!
The real problem is that WDFW interprets "monitoring" as requiring physical WDFW personnel at fishing locations, requiring an interview and sometimes some size data.. this simply converts every single anadromous fishing day into a WDFW cost, sometimes even a large cost. Long seasons everywhere can't be allowed, the money isn't there and was never there. That's the purpose of that monitoring agreement structure, to create significant financial barriers to extended and usual seasons, even if the fish were there. Nobody's license fee provides enough revenue for extended seasons requiring personnel that watch you fish.
The purpose of monitoring is to insure we stay within the allowed quotas. That does NOT require physical interviews and WDFW personnel. All that data is easily and even more efficiently available via real time electronic catch reporting, within something like the Fish WA app. Easy to include a picture of every retained fish within the app, and relevant location data. Could log in your location each day before you start if needed. Everything can easily be spot checked with occasional personnel and even things like a drone flight here and there. Spot checking would leverage those same WDFW personnel many fold, all you need to do is correlate app data to physical.monitoring data to know where the quota is falling. Tons of past and ongoing data already exists to figure out what's returning and from where, in no way do you even need 50% coverage to get good statistics and near real time tracking. Many alternative fish tracking and monitoring systems exist or could be developed. The people at WDFW know that for sure, they just don't care to make that happen.
Guarantee a team of UG students could write that app in a weekend. Maybe AI can do it in five minutes.
The purpose of monitoring is to insure we stay within the allowed quotas. That does NOT require physical interviews and WDFW personnel. All that data is easily and even more efficiently available via real time electronic catch reporting, within something like the Fish WA app. Easy to include a picture of every retained fish within the app, and relevant location data. Could log in your location each day before you start if needed. Everything can easily be spot checked with occasional personnel and even things like a drone flight here and there. Spot checking would leverage those same WDFW personnel many fold, all you need to do is correlate app data to physical.monitoring data to know where the quota is falling. Tons of past and ongoing data already exists to figure out what's returning and from where, in no way do you even need 50% coverage to get good statistics and near real time tracking. Many alternative fish tracking and monitoring systems exist or could be developed. The people at WDFW know that for sure, they just don't care to make that happen.
Guarantee a team of UG students could write that app in a weekend. Maybe AI can do it in five minutes.
32mm
Smolt
Simple answer: Kelly Cunningham doesn't care about rec anglers. His primary constituents are the co-managers, followed by the NT commercial fleet, and then whatever scraps are left, he begrudgingly tosses to us rec anglers. As he stated to staff last year about funding the Quicksilver Portfolio, including the Skagit/Sauk fishery (and I'm paraphrasing): "If the legislature won't give us the money, I want the anglers to feel the pain, so their elected officials can hear from them."
As @Salmo_g pointed out, it's more about their budget allocation and how and where the agency chooses to spend it.
As @Salmo_g pointed out, it's more about their budget allocation and how and where the agency chooses to spend it.
charles sullivan
Life of the Party
In their defense, citizen complaints to their elected officials is actually how this sort of funding gets allocated. So to some extent they are just playing the game the best that they can.
Securing general fund dollars is a lot like the North of Falcon process. It's dividing up paper. Groups with the most political clout get the most paper. If your group gets more paper than another group gets less.
Charles' rambling thoughts:
The Skagit fishery as currently constructed is an expensive fishery. I would be happy to pay for it with a user fee given how unique it is. The state has not chosen to explore this option and from what I've seen and heard TU has also been pushing for state funding as the only mechanism because they want all of the Quicksilver portfolio stuff to be funded. If I am wrong, I would welcome anyone more knowledgable to correct me on that. We seem to be at the point of perfection being the enemy of progress.
This is why WW's vision of occupy skagit was succesful. It aimed at doing one thing and one thing only. Get the river open.
Not correct. WDFW used to spend $220,000 to raise hatchery steelhead for release into the Skagit. They haven't done that for 13 years now. Where the fvck is that money, and why can't part of it be used to fund monitoring of the CNR season?
Cunningham doesn't care that the Department is biting the hand that feeds it. He wants rec anglers to "feel the pain." Well I want to defund Cunningham's and Susewind's job positions so that they can feel the pain of betraying the Department's most stalwart constituents. Fvck 'em!
SeaRunner
Steelhead
Perhaps defunding of hatchery production in the name of wild fish recovery is a convenient means of government eliminating ongoing liabilities so that money can be diverted to other (non-fishing) purposes.
100% agree with Sky on this one. Just FYI, the Puget Sound Anglers have initiated a signature writing campaign on this very issue. Turns out it's not just Skagit Steelhead that need monitoring funds to have a fishery, and it turns out WDFW failed to request ANY monitoring funds in their budget proposal. If you'd like to add your voice, check out PSA's website for a link to the form letter that automatically targets your representatives based on zip code.
Given how WDFW is failing to give consideration to sport anglers, maybe it would make sense to revisit the proposal back in 2010 to merge the agency into the Department of Natural Resources. I think the rationale for the proposal was to achieve cost savings by reducing some of the bureaucracy between the two agencies. I remember WDFW reaching out to the angling community to speak out and not let this happen. Given the direction the agency has taken since then, I’m certainly not going to bat for WDFW if the idea ever comes up again
I don't care for the idea of merging WDFW with DNR. That would further dilute our narrow recreational fishing interest. I think we battle it out where we are, and over time dilute the focus on commercial fisheries because they have proven themselves to be an anachronism.
And is this the same DNR that's looking at closing access to some 20 (+/-) recreational sites?
