Chasing the Scraps

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Cleaning up the Guide Industry in WA

Senate Bill 5786

For years people in the sport fishing community have been talking about the lack of basic requirements to become a fishing guide in Washington State. The Legislature may finally be tackling this issue.

From the text of Bill 5786
"(2) An application submitted to the department under this chapter shall contain the name and address of the applicant and any other information required by the department or this title. An application for a food fish guide license under RCW 77.65.370 or game fish guide license under RCW 77.65.480 must include:
(a) The applicant's driver's license number or Washington identification card number issued under chapter 46.20 RCW;
(b) The applicant's unified business identifier number under a master license issued under RCW 19.02.070;
(c) Proof of current certification in first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation; and
(d) A certificate of insurance demonstrating that the applicant has general liability coverage of at least three hundred thousand dollars."

Seems pretty prudent to require basic First Aid & CPR, insurance, and actually have a business license. Good step by the State.

There is time to send in comments or even testify on February 19th.

Click Here (Click on the green Comment on this Bill button) to send in comments supporting this step in cleaning up the guide industry in Washington State. The State makes it easy to comment so I would suggest supporting them when they make good law.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Perfection

Lately it seems like we have entered a strange world where ideas to fix problems are not worthy of doing if they don't solve the problem entirely. We live in an imperfect world and our solutions are going to be imperfect.

While listening to testimony at the WDFW Commission Meeting last Friday I was struck that this argument was being used against doing anything to stop the declining steelhead numbers. Basically, we have reduced harvest from thirty a year to one a year, have created catch and release areas and numbers have still gone down or have not rebounded so this of course means that any other rule changes should wait because we cannot guarantee a magic bullet.

I refuse to believe that doing nothing is any kind of solution. Experimenting with catch and release, no fishing from boats, bait bans, protecting resident rainbows, and wild steelhead management zones is the only way to go. We have to keep trying new things as the science gets better and new problems crop up. Twenty years ago there was no side-drifting, massive numbers of out of state guides, internet bulletin boards, or Puget Sound river closures.

Of course, we also need to look at ourselves when it comes to effective advocacy for wild fish. This last rule change cycle in Washington State should be a wake-up call with the embarrassing amount of angler apathy here. Here are some numbers.

22,000+ members on a popular Washington State fly fishing internet forum
10,200 members on a popular Olympic Peninsula internet fishing forum
102 comments on North Coast steelhead rule proposals
44 comments on making all rivers selective gear (no bait) from 2/1-4/30
9 comments on opening up the Quilcene River to sea-run cutthroat and resident trout harvest

These numbers and this amount of apathy are a wake-up call to me. What about you?

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Outlive the bastards

Essay by Edward Abbey "I Loved it...I Loved it All" from Ned Judge on Vimeo.

“One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast....a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.”