President Message
State Board President message for June
Wild Fish Conservancy and Conservation Angler always seem to get a free ride when they sue to shut down our hatcheries. None of the recreational anglers pay attention to them. So, while infighting among recreational anglers over who gets the most fish, they get a free ride to sue and shut down our hatchery production. This is where we fail. WDFW gets blamed for every one of those hatchery cuts when they are the ones fighting to keep our hatcheries open. But they sure get no support from most of us. Just a beating. At least some of us try to help guide them in the right direction.
Just remember, you have no other way to gain your fisheries. It all has to go through WDFW. We do have some great WDFW Commissioners that are fighting for us but we have some that want to collapse our hunting and fishing. A couple expire this year if they do not get removed first. If we lose two of those three commissioners Those two anti-hatchery groups and Washington Wildlife First, lose their "in" with the commission that do all of their work for them.
I know at times I am controversial and that is because we are so susceptible to new info that is not entirely correct. Just because it sounds good doesn't mean its true. Too often there is a huge unforeseen circumstance that could wipe us out and many fall for it. I dont know many of us that understand federal fisheries that completely trump state fisheries. I started in federal fisheries and really understood it before I decided to leave the ocean fisheries and come in to try to save the Puget Sound Salmon. I had a really good gig in the ocean bottomfish politics.
As PSA State Board president, with great people in our chapters have stopped 4 fishery closures in Washington state. Two in Neah Bay bottomfish that were overturned before announced. The biggest one was Marine Protected Areas or full fishing closures. Up to 50% of all structure from Port Angeles in were up for becoming closed to ALL Fishing!!!!! This was through yelloweye rockfish. We put together some of the best PSA members as we called upon NOAA to help guide this. Steve Chamberlain, Dan Carney (RIP), Dave Reese, Larry Bucklin, Karl Brackmann, Ken Kumasawa (RIP), with myself were the main people with a few other great people that really saved the Puget Sound Fisheries. Think of all of your chinook fisheries and losing half of them or more.
The last one was the West side of San Juan Island closing for Chinook. PSA and the PS Purse Seine Vessel Owners Association were the drivers to stop it while the recreational side OTF and helpers went with shutting it down. We have a lot of work still to do to turn our fisheries around. It can be done as what we have been doing is not working. Stay tuned. Get your kids and grandkids out on the water as much as you can this year. Join your local PSA Chapter.
ยท Ron Garner President PSA