Restricting anglers to the banks, and prohibiting the use of bait on Olympic Peninsula steelhead streams, should allow more fish to reach their spawning grounds.
If you want to see a great example of poor fish and wildlife management, you don’t have to look further than Washington State’s Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The mess started back in 1974 with the historic Boldt Decision, which allocated 50 percent of the annual fishing catch to treaty tribes across the Evergreen State. The results were immediate: on Puget Sound streams, including the Skagit, Stilliguamish, and Skykomish, fish runs took an immediate hit and som
anglers threw in the towel.
As the years passed, coastal steelhead runs continued to decline throughout much of the state, along with Pacific salmon populations and almost everything else you can imagine and eat—ling cod, octopus, sea urchin, sea slugs, clams . . . .
Declining steelhead populations on rivers flowing into Puget Sound, and the restrictive regulations that followed (i.e. full closures on many popular rivers), sent a wave of anglers to the Olympic Peninsula in search of fresh fish. It didn’t help matters that western Washington’s I-5 corridor was seeing a massive population explosion at this time. And a newfound interest in spey rods and that style of fishing brought additional pressure to the mix. Continue reading →