Another Update from Olympia 5

It seems that every time I try to fish lately I wake to a windstorm, snow, freezing rain, or just another short day of daylight.  I happen to have a really bad case of cabin fever going right now but at least I know that help is just around the corner with our trip to Costa Rica.  The one nice thing about the extended winters we have here in the NW is the fact that we get a chance to keep an eye on the legislature while they are in session.  So with that, here is an update to what has been going on.

 Merger Bill

SB 5669 is currently in Ways and Means and could get scheduled for a public hearing.  Just as a reminder, this is the bill that came from the governor's proposal to  merge WDFW into DNR and create this big new bureaucracy that would have supposedly saved the taxpayer $2.5 million out of a multi-billion deficit.  This bill would have also neutered our commission, the same one that the voters of this state overwhelmingly voted for.  Most people saw this for what it was, a power grab by the governor's office.  Even though recreational anglers showed up in force to put a stop to this nonsense, the bill still has some legs.  It has been changed and no longer takes the commission to an advisory panel, it still merges WDFW with the Parks Department.  This change is the idea of Senator Ranker and he claims there will be savings but at this point I haven't seen anything showing where those savigns will come from. 

The other problem with this bill is that from now on the director would  come from a list of recommendations of both the Parks and Wildlife commissions and then be appointed by the governor and approved by the senate.  This would make the position of the director very political and not in the best interest recreational outdoorsmen.  I also fear that recreatinal anglers and hunters would take a greater roll in funding parks if this merger were to happen.  In my mind we need to stop this bill, there is nothing to gain for recreatinal anglers and hunters.  Stay tuned.

Derelict Gear

SB 5661 and HB 1717.  The senate version of this bill, sponsored by Senator Sharon Nelson, has passed out of Senator Ranker's committee but might be in trouble and needs your help.  If this bill does not pass out of the Rules Committee by 5pm on the 7th it is dead.  Don't let that happen,  respond to this votervoice notice immediately, http://www.votervoice.net/link/target/ccapnw/NN5F2cf8.aspx    When I testified before the committee there wasn't anyone there that opposed the bill but we need to keep communicating with our senator's to make sure this thing goes through, I don't want it to get buried.  On the house side of things the bill didn't even get a hearing in Bryan Blake's committee.  Thsi bill to require gillnetters to report their lost nets is a no brainer and one that everyone should be behind.  Where is Bryan Blake's vision on this?  If I'm not mistaken, he represents economically depressed areas like Westport and instead of promoting recreatinal angling and the dollars we do bring and could bring if given more fishing opportunities in the region, he chooses to side with the few commercial fisherman in his district by not having a hearing.  Representative Blake, what about all the charter guys in your district?

Capitol Budget

Not much to say hear other than you need to contact your representative to let them know you want money in the capital budget to fune hatcheries and enhancement.

Salmon Enhancement

HB 1698 and SB 5291.  In 1993, citing dwindling recreational fishing opportunities for salmon and marine bottomfish in Puget Sound, Washington created the Puget Sound Recreational Salmon and Marine Fish Enhancement Program.  This program was to fund a blackmouth program by charging recreatinal anglers a salmon endorsement when buying a license.  This is the same program that had the bad publicity when the state audit program released their wrong headed audit this past year. I wasn't living in the state when this was passed but I read this original bill this last week and it really seems to me that we as recreational anglers have really let something slip away.  This original enhancement program not only established blackmouth funding but it also gave directives to recovering bottomfish (we can no longer fish for rockfish in Puget Sound), opportunities to work to control predators for more balanced management (both bird and marine mammal predation is a major problem), enhancement opportunities (no artificial reefs for fishing have been placed since), and the list goes on.  This program has not been as successful as it should so now we have this new legislation.

This new legislation is needed and is pretty much the same but does have some changes that are questionable to me.  I like the idea of success being measured by angler trips, it still has salmon and bottomfish enhancement and fishing opportunities as a goal.  I do however question why the management of predators has been removed.  That being said, we need this bill to continue to move forward and I urge you to let your legislators know how important recreational angleing is to this state and encourage them to ad back in the language regarding management of predators and then vote yes.