WDFW Shrimp Commission meeting Report

[Fishnut]

Thanks to all that attended.


Fridays commission meeting I felt went great. We got started late as their early morning meeting went a little long. The powerpoint presentation we built, and rebuilt several times, was going to be hard to dispute. I had contacted many industry and retailers to help out with giving testimony at the meeting. John Martinez, Dan Stauffer, and Gabe Miller of OE/Sportco were the main ones that showed up. I had invited Buck Setera (whom wrote a letter) Ace line haulers, and Kevin Johns of Holiday sports. They did not make it,
We had roughly 50 people show up in support of the recreational advisors proposal of 75/25. Since three of us were advisors 10 years ago, we have been pushing to open up the policy and jumped at the chance to be advisors once again. This was going to have to be handled by us as we had the background of how to change this policy. So I cut our lobbyist and other groups loose to work the CR gillnet issue.
The meeting started with Rich Childers giving a powerpoint of the different proposals. He told the commission that the shrimp resource is growing even with increased pressure. It is well managed and they have the ability to slow down take in areas if they show signs of overharvest or decline. There was combined agreement to move all commercials to the San Juans and Straits.

Afterwards , the recreational advisors panel , the commercials advisory panel, and last public testimony.
I stated I was there to represent PSA State Board, CCA, NSIA, Fish NW, and the recreational community as well as we were supporting our rec advisory panel.

We gave our powerpoint that was very thorough. We shoed pictures showing generations of shrimpers making lifelong memories. We covered our license fees, economic value, showed how the commercials get 50% of the shrimp on the backs of the recs, and that the commercials shrimp doesn’t even stay local and leaves the state/country. We pay for their fishery as well as ours. Our panel showed a united front that was smooth in transition, from one speaker to the next. We supported our position. We support changing the overall percentage split to 75% rec / 25% coml.

Next the commercials were up. They had no powerpoint, showed no unity, and said it would hurt them financially. They were worried that we would overharvest areas and other areas would go untouched. Rich Childers had showed that it is well managed and still could be. They didn’t seem to be on the same page on anything, in fact didn’t even support their own proposal as they had other numbers they threw out. They did not want to be managed on an overall basis. But we have kept this on track since June to require manage on overall split.

Dan Stauffer, John Martinez, Gabe Miller did an excellent presentation on what shrimping means for the industry and income for the state. PSA Sno King members that spoke were Dave Martin, Wally Cogley, David Lutz, and many other PSA members from other clubs. Everyone did a great job and I don’t think it could have gone together better. We had two other of our rec advisors other than Brent, Gordon, and I give testimony and did very well. One guy was a Lapush charter and now a sporty fisherman. He said that even though we are taking the commercials back a ways they will survive. I felt we hit it out of the park together and thanks to everyone that participated.

[Nelly]

Fishnut! Way to go!!!

I will never be able to fully communicate my gratitude and admiration for your tireless efforts on behalf of the sportfishermen!

The shrimp portion is piece of the "opportunity" puzzle that is coming together before our eyes.
When you consider selective salmon fishing, winter crabbing and now an increased shrimping opportunity, we as sportsmen & women have many more days on the water that are putting seriously needed dollars into our LOCAL economy...

So what's the downside? Less than 20 commercial license holders have to set their pots in the Straits and San Juans... Sounds like a much more wise use of a public resource to me!

[Dan Carney]

Moving commercial shrimping to the straights and San Juans probably sounds like a great idea to everyone; except for the recreational anglers who fish those areas. What I haven't heard explained is why this is such a great idea. Are the shrimp stocks so great that they will support both commercial and recreational anglers in these areas? I don't shrimp a lot, but when commercial crabbing is open at the same time as recreational, my catch rates on keepers goes way down. I'm wondering if shrimp will follow suit???
L8R
Dan

[Fishnut]

Thanks Nelly for the kind words and thanks for your help in getting the messages it out.

Dan,
We are only moving 2 licenses of the 18 commercial licenses up into the San Juans and Straits where the rest reside. This leaves the entire 8-13 of the non tribal shrimp to the recreationals. We were splitting this area with only 1-2 licenses. As far as the San Juans we are going to increase the receational take up there and would increase the shrimping days from 6 to 36 days.

We are advocating to change the percentage allocation back to 75% recreational /25% commercial. This is where we were in 1995. When the current policy was implimented it went to 60/40. Since through quota increases that were in the straits primarily went to the commercials which has dropped us down to 50%. So we are on a losing course if we had not done something to stop our percentage decrease.

So our 75/25 proposal would give a larger supply of the shrimp back to the recreationals. The shrimp resource seems to be very stable. The overall amount is still going to be managed using the same over all poundage just changing the numbers of who gets what.

Quota increases are provided when the seasons are over and they do test fisheries and the resource still shows that it is still stable with large poundages in the pots with a 24 hour soak. But it has to be agreed by both the tribes and us. The largest supply of shrimp are in the San Juans and Straits. The straits are mostly commercial and the best shrimping in the state. When people learn this it will grow very quickly. Some of us have done it for years and kept it quiet as we had a small poundage out here years ago. Now we are letting the cat out of the bag.

Hope this helps.
Ron

[Dan Carney]

I had heard about the shift in quotas but not the increase from 6 to 36 days.
sounds a lot better.
L8R
Dan

[Brandon]

Fishnut- Thanks alot for everything you do man.