WDFW did not request funding for a 2027 Skagit-Sauk season

Chris DeLeone said:
No, I don't think so, I think Kelly Cunningham said this in a TEAMS/zoom meeting or in a meeting with the team that works under him. The statement fits his managerial approach ........................... "not real effective"
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Is there a witness I could talk to about that?
 
BriGuy said:
If you know the date and subject of the meeting, you could submit a public records request for a recording, if there was one made.
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The state has gotten themselves in some trouble becuase they use teams and in doing so the written messages sent during these meeting are supposed to kept. I know that other government agencies either don't use teams or turn off that messaging feature.

What Cunningham said is something that I have heard before in bad budget times. It's a product of the system. The politicians are the ones who hold the purse strings. If a constituency speaks up for a program/ department, it's far more likely to be funded. In the short term, it's helpfully that the public "feels the pain" of a program/ departments budget woes as that may make them contact their rep's. Over time, I think the tactic wears on the public and makes them far less intersted in aiding the department. That is sort of where WDFW is IMO.

WDFW has to make choices as to what programs and fisheries it will fund. I think that they have chosen against the Skagit steelhead season because they see it as a fishery that they may be able to get the fiserhmen to lobby for increased funding to support it. No one is going to write any letters if the lower river spring king fishery goes away. Even the river sockeye fishery won't generate any activism. The steelhead fishery has TU lobbying for it in conjunction with their quicksilver portfolio and has a group of epople who have already gone out of their way to lobby for it historically. IMO, the passion people have for this fishery works against it within the current funding paradigm.

My thought is that Skagit fishermen either have to lobby for funding directly, or make the case that the department should use money now directed at spring kings fishing and in-river sockeye fishing for it. The question becomes do you think you can lobby the legistlature for funding or persuade the department to change their priorities?

I guess it is time to write an e-mail. Well, two actually.
 
charles sullivan said:
What Cunningham said is something that I have heard before in bad budget times. It's a product of the system. The politicians are the ones who hold the purse strings. If a constituency speaks up for a program/ department, it's far more likely to be funded. In the short term, it's helpfully that the public "feels the pain" of a program/ departments budget woes as that may make them contact their rep's. Over time, I think the tactic wears on the public and makes them far less intersted in aiding the department. That is sort of where WDFW is IMO.
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If this "feel the pain" comment was actually said, I would like to look the fucker in the eyes and ask him "What the fuck did we do?"

WDFW should be advocating for us, not punishing us.
 
_WW_ said:
If this "feel the pain" comment was actually said, I would like to look the fucker in the eyes and ask him "What the fuck did we do?"

WDFW should be advocating for us, not punishing us.
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I understand what you are saying. My belief is that we have been "feeling the pain" for a hell of a long time. It's a shitty statement.

When you fell the pain for long enough it turns to fatigue. That's where we are at. The pain no longer motivates me like it once did. It's become fatigue.
 
My plan now is to invest as much effort in obeying the rules as they put into funding the season.
 
Chatgpt or one of the ai programming apps can do that, but it's a data heavy task.
After a about a dozen prompts, it generates a color coded map of marine and river systems, with changes over time controlled by a slider.
This would generate the code needed, and then you'd need to save the file and run it on a machine, or host the code on the web.
Interesting project, looks like it could be created for free with some time and ai programming bots.

I got this, after getting an outline of the program:

Ultimately, the application could let you:

Drag the slider from 1970 → 2026 and watch opportunities change.
Click the Skagit, Cowlitz, Hoh, or any other river to see how regulations evolved.
Toggle Chinook, coho, steelhead, and other species independently.
Compare freshwater and Marine Area opportunities side by side.
View annotations explaining major changes such as ESA listings, hatchery policy shifts, and major regulation updates.
To make the history as accurate as possible, the project would need a curated dataset assembled from historical WDFW regulations and GIS layers. That data work is the largest part of the project.

If your goal is to create something that others can use, this could become a valuable public resource. I can continue helping with the software architecture, code, data model, and visualization design as the historical data are assembled.
 
So it appears wdfw has the digitized regs from 2009 forwards, but further back would have a gap, but for 1970–1990, you can use university archives. Western Washington University's Center for Pacific Northwest Studies holds the definitive collection of Washington Department of Fisheries reports up to 1991.
So 19 91-2009 regs would need to located in a digital format, or digitized from old regs books...sort of a pain to do...maybe there's pdfs out there that could help.
In any event, it appears doable through a code bot ( sure there would be some tweaking needed) but the gis data and mapbox layer is all available to make the base map and rtme slider, so a complete database would need to created, formatted and then annotated with major changes (Boltdt ESA Hatchery policy changes etc)

Wish I was more capable here, it'd be cool to have available to present to the commission.
 
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_WW_ said:
Fishing is still allowed on the Skagit and Sauk Rivers on a limited basis. There is in fact an agreed to a fishing plan that has received the blessing of both NMFS, the treaty tribes and WDFW. Part of that limitation, in the limited basis, is careful monitoring of the fishery. The people who do the monitoring activities, just like you, want their f****** paycheck.

So how did we get here from the point when the winter steelhead fishing was completely closed from the mouth of the Elwa all through Puget Sound to the Canadian border. We protested, went to the top dogs at wdfw 3 and 4 times a year or over 6 years, overpowered them with some of their own science to make our case that the Skagit fishery could exist. Not only that but we provided them with the answer, basin by basin management instead of regional management. It seems like such a simple solution but it seemed to have escaped the agency that could do that very thing with regulations and catch limits. However, the monitoring of The fishery was an important part of the plan to revive the season. I doubt that it will be given up easily, therefore it needs to be paid for.

Moving forward it is my opinion that once again you are going to have to provide them with the answer to the problem, and convince them to move in that direction. It won't be easy, it will take a lot of time, it will take a lot of dedication by a handful of people with broad public support. It will need to be done, respectfully, within the confines of the established methods to work with the department. Without that, all of the internet forum whining is just pissing in the wind and will lead nowhere.
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Thanks W.
 
JayB said:
Not that I want to give the state any ideas and not suggesting this as any kind of a serious policy proposal - but given what I pay in gas, lodging, out of state license, and shuttle fees to fish several hours away in other states I'd fork over $100/day to fish the Sauk/Skagit and consider it money well spent. Particularly after paying ~$400+ to take a family of four to a two-hour Kraken game via upper-level Costco tickets....
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I really dot think giving the state more money would fix this problem.

Its more of a priority on where the state focuses spending. In other words Schools anr never fully funded and class sizes never drop. Even back when the state had a surplus of $$.

I have a buddy who works directly with the Governors for the State budget committee. And has for the past 30 years. The problem is the state has a spending problem. For example a long time friend of the family just changed from a man to a woman. And yes the tax payers paid for it!!
 
Phil Fravel said:
I have a buddy who works directly with the Governors for the State budget committee. And has for the past 30 years. The problem is the state has a spending problem. For example a long time friend of the family just changed from a man to a woman. And yes the tax payers paid for it!!
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And yet to a majority or at least plurality of Washington voters, the truth is paying for your family friends transition was more of a priority to them than funding our sport fishing season.
 
Salmo_g said:
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!
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What if everyone didn’t get a license next year? Defund the WDFW! Everyone fish without a license…
 
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