Northwest Fishing Reports

A co-worker of mine was up a Lake Cushman last weekend doing some crayfishing. Someone told him that the lake was closed to even pots so he called WDFW. Apparentlythey consider crawdads a fish. I thought, since they are regulated as a shell fish they would be legal to harvest in the lakes affected by the salmon closure.

Any thoughts?

Seems a little extreme to me, but that may be due to the way the ESA laws are worded. If a species is covered by ESA, the law may say no fishing or no harvesting period.

So there's no crawfishing in lake washington either? My girlfriend and I wanted to try it this year. If not, anyone know any places that you are able too.?

I noted that the closure was to all fishing which would include shellfish/crayfish as well. That being said, it is quite silly for the WDFW not to have made an exception for crayfish pots, frog gigging and the like in the effected waters. I would argue that ESA listed fish passing through the locks are more likely to be harmed by that activity than folks dropping and retreiving crayfish gear. And why stop at recreational fishing? Boat traffic through the ship canal, and other narrow/shallow sections of water subject to this closure, has also been shown to have a negative impact on ESA listed fish. Unlike our pal Deapool, the State and Federal agencies put forth minimum effort when coming up with a solution to the issue before them.

Yes, it's easy for me to say this, however I'm not the one who insists on conducting public business during normal working hours when the average voter is hard at work. Until these sessions are conducted during voter friendly hours/weekends, all I have to go on is the end result and the public statement(s) provided by those involved.

I contacted WDFW on the closures. The NOAA guidance requires a permit for any activity that is "likely" to result in "taking" of an ESA listed species. According to WDFW NOAA has now said that a permit is required when any taking is remotely possible. I think this is an indefensible interpretation (kind of like banning deer hunting where a listed bird lives--we don't do that), but apparently WDFW doesn't want to take the chance of a lawsuit. I'm rapidly losing what little faith I had in their sensibility.

However, they are allowing a kid's fishing derby at Gene Coulon on June 4th. Seems to me that those kids have a better chance of hooking a salmon than I would with a crawdad trap.

If I am not mistaken, a net system will be deployed to ensure the planted fish are kept in a particular area. Those same nets will keep ESA listed fish out of harm's way.

Now, they used to release the fish, into the lake, that weren't caught during the derby, but some nut jobs had a fit claiming they would taint the native gene pool. Lake Washington's native rainbow stock could use an infusion of any new genes as they have been losing out to the cutts in BIG way. Heck, steelhead are pretty much extinct in the system and the State refuses to do anything about it.

OK, I'd better stop before I get overly worked up.