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My Fish Story Page  Near the bottom of this page are links to the Washington State Fish & Wildlife Commission and the Fish & Wildlife Enforcement Division. The Wildlife Commission's page has important information about the Public Hearings and Meetings. Please get involved with the Fish & Wildlife Commission hearings and meetings to protect our famous resources. It helps everyone by voicing your opinion. We have to save the fish & wildlife habitat for our children's children.
Remember to treat the earth well because it was not given to you by your parents, it is being loaned to you by the future generations.... Political Perusals I have included a few politically correct or incorrect views only to generate an interest in what is going on with the fishing industry in the State of Washington. These views are not from the powerful state or federal government. These views are not from what I have heard from the many sports fishermen and the Indian fishermen. These views are not from the environmentalists. These views are not from the microbial lifeforms in the creeks, rivers Puget Sound and the ocean. These views are "Views to Peruse". How is Fishing in Washington ? The picture below was taken in South Bend Washington. It reminds me of the days when I used to carry one fish at a time on my back, instead of ten in a sack. Those days were before the wild stock of fish were over-fished and replaced with the hatchery raised fish. This statue was erected to honor the fisherman of Willapa Harbor.  Part 1
There are a lot of fish to catch out there in the waters but, the sportsman fisherman and the Indian sports-fisherman can't catch them. Why can't they catch them... read my story. The large foreign & domestic corporation's commercial fishing ships take millions of salmon and the smaller commercial fishing boats both Indian and non-Indian take thousands of salmon, the non-Indian sportsman and Indian sports-fisherman only have the opportunity to catch a couple of fish a day. Why? The sportsman fishermen are the third to the last in the food-chain group that are suffering from some political decisions to allocate the stocks of fish. The salmon allocation is only meant to divide the resource between the the commercial fisherman, sports fisherman and escapement to preserve the fishery resource. The allocation between the commercial and the sportsman fisherman is lopsided. There are more sports fishermen than commercial fishermen so.. why does the commercial fishermen get to catch more fish than the sports fishermen? This formula forgets the larger number of voting sportsman - as compared to the fewer commercial fisherman. A lot of Washingtons' commercial fisherman make a lot of money fishing in the Alaskan waters. When they fish in Washington's waters ... it is just the frosting on their cake. The second to the last in the line of the food chain is the animals that catch the fish on their way up the river to spawn. The predator animals like the bear and the eagles that feed on the fish are seeing less fish too, they do not have a voice to speak out against governmental allocations of the fishing resource. They need a voice in Olympia and in Washington D.C.. The last in the food line really do need to have a big-voice that needs to be heard in Olympia and in the other Washington. The creeks and the rivers that support the fishing industry are dying off. Why? The timber companies are contributing to the death of the creeks through the silting of the creeks by the deforestation. The silting takes the oxygen out of the creek waters where the fish go to spawn. Another major cause of the creeks and rivers that are dying is caused by the agricultural and homeowners use of fertilizers and chemicals that will flow into the creeks and rivers by surface water runoff. Chemicals are also carried into the creeks, rivers and the Sound by the storm water drainage systems. These drainage systems are maintained by the cities and the counties. The big timber companies and the industrialists that pollute our creeks, rivers and bays are killing all microbial lifeforms that our fish need as food to survive. The creeks, rivers, Puget Sound and the ocean need to live to provide us fisherman with the fish. Ask any marine biologist and the biologist will tell you that. All the Indian and State fish hatcheries in Washington are propagating the stocks of fish for the large commercial fishing corporations that catch millions of fish per year. The hatcheries will not support the fishing industry if the creeks, rivers, Puget Sound and the ocean dies. The fish will not live long enough for us to catch them, try and hold your breath for four-years. The oceans provide the earth with seventy-percent of the air that we breathe. So please help protect this valuable resource. Part 2 The newspaper, Tacoma News Tribune - Bob Mottram story, the state officials were quoted as saying the Fish Director "mismanaged the department" and was fired. The unspoken fact is the Director did post monitors on the big boats to watch the by-product or incidental catch of spring chinook and found the numbers caught to be above thirty percent of the total catch. Over thirty-five thousand spring chinook were caught in just a few days. The commercial fisherman weren't suposed to be catching any of them, especially since the spring chinook will soon be an endangered species. The Director did close the commercial fishery down. Why was the Director fired? He was acting responsible when he placed some monitors on the big-boats to count the incidental catch. We have not received any reports from the State since the Director was fired and replaced by someone that did not place monitors on the big-boats. Is the spring-chinook going to be placed on the endangered species list because of mismangement. Who is mismanaging the resource? In one of my reports about the one day opening in Ilwaco in 1998, the sportsman would be allowed to catch only 732 fish; compare that to over 35,000 caught by the commercial fishery. The sportsman did get a chance to catch a couple hundred kings. "Get real" and ask the politicians in office to serve the people that vote them into office. We want them politicians to protect these resources of salmon and the habitat in which the salmon live in, for all of us people here in Washington to enjoy. In the 1998 commercial sockeye fishery, there were no monitors to account for the incidental by-catch of the spring chinook. The year before... they caught 35,000 spring chinook. There were no monitors placed on the big commercial fishing boats in 1998. The commercial sockeye fishery was not shut down because the commercial fisherman were catching to many chinook. In 1998 only 35,000 spring chinook returned to the hatcheries, that was the same amount caught in 1997 when the sockeye fishery was shut down to protect the spring chinook. Because the spring chinook returning to the hatcheries was low in 1998, it is my personal belief that the commercial fishery did catch too many spring chinook. A month ago, the spring chinook and six other species of salmon was proposed to the Senate and Congress to be put under the protection of the Endangered Species Act. This act will have a major impact on: the agricultural community, the industrial manufacturing plants and many homeowners adjacent to the creeks and rivers. It will also affect counties and cities that have the oversight to protect the environment. The sportsman do not get to fish as much as they would like to or catch the amount of fish they used to catch. The sportsman have to use different types of gear now (barbless hooks,.etc.) to reduce the amount of fish they catch as the sportsman allocation. Why? The Endangered Species Act will cause the small towns of Ilwaco - Westport - Seiku - Port Townsend and LaConner to economically die because a few powerful politicians did not protect your interests. Remember that when you vote again. Remember, these views are only views to weigh your decision on which politician to be calling on to help support our fishing industry. I am sorry if the politician gets upset with me because he voted for or against an issue on the House or Senate floor; contrary to the wishes of all the people that like to fish, or contrary to the wishes of Mother Nature. Please call on the politician to support Mother Nature and the People. At least let your representative know how you feel. We need to take care of our earth for our children and their children, they loaned it to us to enjoy. Below is the Puyallup Tribe of Indians.. Diru Creek Hatchery. To see more pictures of the fish hatchery facility click on the picture or on the named link below. This facility has released more than one and a half-million fish per year. In the year of 1998: 67,200 steelhead, 240,00 White River spring chinook, 380,954 fall chinook, and 990,690 chum were raised and released by this facility alone. All of the Puyallup Tribes Fish hatchery facilities raised and released a total of 2,274,636 fish for all of us to enjoy. All of the Puyallup Tribe of Indians fisherman caught less than 1.0 percent of of the fish released from this facility last year. Let us hope and pray we can actually catch one of them fish before the politicians close the fishing industry down completely.  Washington State Fish & Wildlife Commission 
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