Salmon fishing suspended in Marine Area 11 (Tacoma-Vashon Island)

FISHING RULE CHANGE

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
July 13, 2023

Salmon fishing suspended in Marine Area 11 (Tacoma-Vashon Island)

This is absolutely terrible news for South Sound anglers. We should have been able to fish through a good chunk of August in Marine Area 11! What’s worse is that the main push of summer chinook salmon has not even arrived yet! They are up in the eastern part of MA6 and mid-channel bank in MA9.

There’s a lot of angler anger out here about this closure and for good reason. But there’s also a lot of misinformation being spread about WHY this closure happened.

I’m going to present to you the reality of our current situation, and I expect that some of you are also probably not going to want to hear it.

I wrote an article a week ago that angered some folks, but I’m not backing down from writing about the reality of where we are and what we can do to change things.

Let’s focus on the stated reason in the official news release to start our journey into explaining what’s going on here:

“Reason for action: Salmon fishing is being temporarily suspended because the sublegal encounter limit has reached 83% (3,209 of 3,845) of what was agreed to in this years List of Agreed Fisheries (LOAF).“

Determining these numbers and limits used to be calculated using the creel checker information. You know, the folks who meet you at the dock at the end of your day of fishing and ask you how you did.

However, in a variety of online forums, folks started advocating that we lie to these “fish checkers” about how many sublegal salmon were encountered and how many unmarked salmon were encountered. In, fact even yesterday and today, some folks are blaming the fact that some anglers tell fish checkers “the truth” about what fish they caught and released as the reason for the closure.

The truth couldn’t be further these statements.

The truth is that our creel check numbers started to not match the test fishing data and began to lose credibility. And given how big of a factor monitoring fisheries that impact ESA-listed chinook salmon is, having credible data is a really big deal.

In fact, WDFW now has to rely on “professional” test fishers to allow fisheries in Puget Sound to occur at all. And guess what? Those test fishers’ numbers are multiplied by total effort (boats counted).

Do you think that’s a good thing for our fisheries? Do you think the number of sublegals the test fishers caught last weekend multiplied by the sport fleet effort reflects the reality of how many sublegals were actually caught?

Here’s the reality check: If the Puget Sound sport fishing community HAD NOT begun the practice of lying to creel checkers, we would still be fishing in Marine Area 11 through July and August.

Yeah, you can blame a bunch of other factors if you want: The tribe, the government, the seals, the wild fish folks, global warming, habitat destruction, commercial bycatch and I’m sure many others you can name.

But we don’t have control over those things do we?

We need to somehow get back to providing true and accurate data to WDFW that is credible and can be used in fisheries monitoring with the Feds and the Tribes.

Nobody believes we’ve actually hooked that many sublegals, but that also doesn’t matter anymore thanks to our creel data not being credible.

One thing you can do is to start submitting VTR’s (Voluntary trip reports). Maybe, if enough of us do this, it will create another credible data set that can be in the mix in the future vs just relying on the small sample size of test fishers.

In this case, the test fishers caught a bunch of jacks (still sublegal even if sexually mature) jigging last weekend and now we are shut down.

Official WDFW News Release below:

WDFW Fishing Rule Change: Salmon fishing suspended in Marine Area 11 (Tacoma-Vashon Island)

Action: Closes salmon fishing.

Effective date: July 15, 2023, until further notice.

Species affected: All salmon.

Location: Marine Area 11 (Tacoma-Vashon Island).

Reason for action: Salmon fishing is being temporarily suspended because the sublegal encounter limit has reached 83% (3,209 of 3,845) of what was agreed to in this years List of Agreed Fisheries (LOAF). Feedback from Puget Sound Sports Fishing Advisory Group and other members of the public indicated a desire to preserve salmon fishing opportunity for August. Therefore, WDFW will suspend the fishery now to preserve opportunity for later in the summer season.

Additional Information: Year-round fishing piers, Dash Point Dock, Des Moines Pier, Les Davis Pier, Point Defiance Boathouse Dock, and Redondo Pier remain open as listed in the 2023/24 Sport Fishing Rules pamphlet.

Information contact: Fish Program, 360 902-2700.