Is It Time for Leadership Change at WDFW? | Badger Fishing Show Ep. 5

In Episode 5, Phillip Olson and Alex Van Hine take an in depth look at one of the biggest questions facing Washington’s outdoor community:

Is it time for leadership change at WDFW?

We discuss:

• The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission and why recreational anglers need to get involved.
• Why public comment matters and what happened at the latest Commission meeting.
• The electronic catch reporting app controversy and why data accuracy matters.
• Budget concerns, accountability, and where license dollars are going.
• The Skokomish River dispute and why recreational fishing remains closed.
• Why transparency and leadership matter for the future of fishing and hunting in Washington.
• What recreational anglers can do to help protect opportunity for future generations.

Whether you agree with us or not, we hope this episode encourages respectful discussion and greater public involvement in the future of Washington’s fisheries.

If you enjoy these conversations, please:

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The Badger Fishing Show
Advocacy | Transparency | Accountability

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:26

Dude, I don't even know where to start. I would totally agree. This one's gonna be fire. Um I'm irritated. I'm motivated. I'm dedicated. Uh-huh. Rededicated myself to the mission of doubling down when I need to double down. Yeah. That actually might be the name of this podcast. This podcast might be Double Down. Yeah. To double down or not to double down.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:57

Dude, one of the things that I think's happened that I let's just start out with some positivity. Talking about a crab and shrimp uh advisory group meeting.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Well, we sat on um okay, Aaron Defoe. He is uh Puget Sound Shellfish Manager, um stand-up dude. And uh we've been in communication with him, and we we we reached out to him and asked uh how do we pursue further communication and and understanding shrimp, crab, shellfish, and Puget Sound more. And he let us know that there was an advisory group and there was an advisory group meeting. And uh, contrary to the Puget Sound Sport Fishing Advisory Group, that the shellfish advisory meetings are presented as being fully public. And and and so with discussions with Aaron, he made sure that not only was the schedule updated on the website, because if you're not 2022, uh, so not only was their ad meeting schedule updated on the WDFW website, there was even a link for the public to join their advisory group meeting. Uh so we did that, right? Yeah, we did. We joined, we joined that meeting. Um, now we weren't able to make comment during the bulk of the meeting. Um, I was texting Aaron during, I'm like, dude, can I talk about this? And he and and he said, Hey, I'm about to make a comment. Um, not yet. And and and I think he let us both know, like, I will make sure that you guys get a chance to talk at the end of the meeting, which he did. Um, and and so the meeting was like scheduled from something like one to three. And and you're like, dude, they're slow playing this, they're slow playing this, they're not gonna let us talk. And then Aaron made sure that we had an opportunity to talk during that advisory group meeting, which was great because we've seen so many meetings, whether they're advisory group meetings or they're NOF meetings or their morning briefings at PFMC, and they're like, Hard stop. It's it's like this is the allotted time we had hard stop, and they do. I think we went like 30 minutes over just so we could talk, uh, which was great.

SPEAKER_02 3:31

Yeah, I was gonna say that. Yeah, I was like, Yeah, it was it went longer than its scheduled time. He said, Hey, you guys want to leave and the rest of us just stay on here and talk. He'd he'd sit in there and talk on the record. It was recorded, the whole thing was recorded, and it was just open conversation. It didn't feel like you were talking to the wall. When you go to NOF and you get into some topics that maybe feel uncomfortable or maybe are against the grain, you feel like you're talking to against the wall to a computer. Thanks for your comment. We'll get back. There was not one single question that was not answered, there was not one single comment that was not addressed. They were talking about both sides of each topic, and it was open. You know, one of one of the things they were talking about was hey, what is it gonna be like if maybe we take some of the marine areas and make them like marine area 12 for shrimping instead of having them open all day? You know, what if we make it go only nine to one, these shotgun openers? And there was people in the meeting that were discussing both sides of yeah, hey, that could be a benefit, hey, that could be you know not a benefit. And they were open to talking about it, they were open to discussing it from enforcement to boat launch pressure to coverage as far as monitoring goes to safety to tides to weather. Like if every single department of fish and wildlife meeting went like that, I think the current attitude that the public has towards the department, it would be quite a bit different because we don't feel like we're being heard. And in that meeting, I felt like we were being heard. So if you're a department of fish and wildlife staff and you're listening to this podcast, because I know you are, maybe you should take some notes from the Crab Shrimp Puget Sound Advisory Group because not only is their stuff updated online, but they listen to their people.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

Yeah, agree. Yeah, and I'll I'll list off some names. Um, so obviously Aaron Defoe, Puget Sounds manager. Um, we have him. We are communicating with the department through CAPE. Hopefully, maybe Aaron makes an appearance on our on our show here before too long. Um, but uh Don Velasquez.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

Hey, it's gonna be on my terms, it's gonna be on our terms. It's not gonna be on their terms, though. Yeah, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna be muzzled. I'm not there is the the the first amendment is you know, there's a reason for that. Freedom of speech, you're not this is not CNN, this is not Fox, this is not C, you know, CBS, this is the Badger Fishing Show, and uncomfortable topics are gonna take place. And if you don't want to be a part of those uncomfortable topics, hey man, this isn't the place for you.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

You know, and and and gosh, we're gonna be so off topic here. Uh, maybe we should do a little introduction. This this is the badger fishing show. You are the host.

SPEAKER_03 6:29

Uh, yeah, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

You are the host, Philip.

SPEAKER_02 6:33

There's no co-hosts. You are in an indefinite guest. You are not a co-host.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Why are you not a co-host, Alex? Uh no, I am just a resident guest. Uh no of you know, I am not badger fishing. Okay, like that uh I am I'm I'm just uh liaison, maybe to per se. Uh, but my name is Alex Vanhein, and I enjoy the opportunity to sit down and talk with you, Philip, and we record this and we post it. Okay, so let's get that out of the air. Not a co-host, just a resident guest. Uh, so back to Shellfish. Um, Don Velazquez. Um, beg your pardon.

SPEAKER_02 7:20

We're gonna we're gonna segue, we're gonna segue in a minute on why that statement is so important. So stay tuned. Yeah, but yes, continue.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

Yeah, okay. So Shellfish, uh Don Velasquez, uh Daniel Sund and Caitlin Bosley, they ran a awesome meeting uh that was informative, it was uh collaborative. Um, some of those advisors they don't agree on things. There were topics about uh uh uh charter fishing or or guides and and charters on and how they target shellfish. And some advisors weren't totally keen on on the methods of some of the guides and charters on how they do shrimp and crab harvest. Um, but I let's not get too deep into what that meeting was. The the point of the of us bringing this up was that it was a really great conversation, and it was it was made available for us as just ordinary members of the public to be on the meeting, and uh and and Aaron made sure to give us opportunity to speak on the topics that they discussed, despite us not being advisors. So it was really cool. Um yeah, you touched on it. There absolutely was uh a hefty part of that discussion about um a a I don't want to call it a suggestion, but uh and I don't want to call it a proposal either, but uh at least consideration of moving marine area six and marine area seven to a time restricted shrimp fishery, to which is stupid. Um there they they had a really cool slide that was pros and cons. Uh pros was uh was uh less lost gear. Uh it was um uh a easier enforcement coverage, yeah. Easy it well, not just enforcement, but also sampling or or estimations, because they do that differently than what we were used to with salmon. Um, but easier to estimate effort and um potential for more days. Now they even make sure to like quote days and said that days doesn't mean more time. Um, because if you take let's just call it a 12-hour window, let's just you know, sunrise to sunset, and um so if we have less days of 12 hour windows, um but going to a time-restricted fishery gives us more days of four-hour windows. Yes, we see more days, but we don't see more time. Um and I was very outspoken when we got our opportunity to speak about. I mean, a matter of fact, I have my notes right here that uh that for the working public, we have seen both now South Sound shrimp and then also salmon, that the season structure is moving in a direction that is purposefully by design uh limiting the effort and participation by our working families. It's by design. They know they're doing this on purpose. That's why we've seen less weekend days of shrimp opportunity, we're seeing less weekend days of salmon opportunity. Uh, and it and and let's not think that that that's by you know happenstance, that's purposeful. They are the department is purposefully putting us on the water on weekdays in an effort to reduce participation. It's just was that's just what it is. Um and their mindset is that our fleet is growing, and if we don't put seasons and constraints on the times that we can fish or harvest shellfish, if we don't put constraints on that that equal to weekday opportunity, then we will uh potentially run into situations where we have too much participation and we over harvest or we we reach our quotas or thresholds quicker. And and so my point was that um if if we move to a time-restricted fishery on marine areas six and seven, then it's just one step closer to harming our working families. Uh dude, I I shrimp and either when I get these openers, it's either in the early morning or it's in the late evening, because that's when I can go. Um, and frankly, I don't want to go on the weekend days that we do the one weekend day we get because it's too busy. And um, and so when we go to a time restricted fishery in the largest marine areas that we have in the state, um then we're really kicking a bunch of people off the water. And I just can't I can't buy on to that, even if it means more days, it doesn't mean more time. And frankly, for folks like myself in the schedule that I have to fish with, it it really means less time. Um and the gear loss thing, I don't think the department should care at all about if someone is dumb enough to go set their gear on max current. Um that's that's how we learn, right, Philip? Like, like that's part of learning. You go out there and and you lose your gear because you set in max current. Um, next you know, your booze are under and your pot's floating away. Um, that's a learning lesson, and that's not the department's job to help us learn that lesson.

SPEAKER_02 13:39

Yeah, there are some people that you know learn from shrimping, but I think the majority of the people that go out and shrimp, you know, you own a boat, so you gotta be, you know, you're not just the average dude that's just getting into fishing, who's just buying a fishing pole at Bass Pro Shops or Sportsman's Warehouse or Sportco and has got $200 invested in it. And you know, this is day one. Like when you buy a boat, you've watched some YouTube videos, you fished with somebody else, you've been part of a Facebook group, like you're gonna understand the importance of making sure you have the right amount of line, how deep your line is, you know, what type of water you're gonna put that in, all that stuff. I think that you actually have more gear loss when you limit the window to only nine to one, because you know now you have to you can't tie time the tides. You literally, when when it's nine to one, you can't even go look at a new spot. If you put your first set of pots down and you don't have a good pull, you can't go to a new spot because you know you're you're already 10:30, it's already 10 o'clock, and yeah, it was open all day. Maybe you could try a new spot in the morning, or maybe you could pick the tide that you wanted to go. Like last year, weather was a big thing. We got a big, huge, nasty north wind that came through Area 12, and nine different boats capsized because and enforcement wasn't even doing enforcement, they were doing rescuing because we were only open from nine to one, and the wind was horrible during that time. Like this, this same thing. Yeah, sorry, go ahead. The exact opposite needs to be taking place. I don't think the conversation should be, hey, should we be considering moving other marine areas to nine to one? That's not the conversation we have. We need to be having the conversation, hey, the marine areas that aren't all day. Should we be considering maybe putting them all day? Because with the you know, increased effort, we're we're also seeing, you know, there's not more boat launches being put in. We're not developing more boat launches, we're not making the boat launches bigger, we're not adding more docks in the Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of Ecology isn't gonna let any of that stuff happening. So we have these boat launches that have that have the effort in parking lots of 20, 30, 40 years ago, and now we have this increased effort, and people are not parking in the marinas anymore or in the parking lots, they're parking on the roads at Salisbury Point. They're parking on the highway. It's gonna start turning into Draeno where the state patrol is gonna have to come close down the highway or not let people go into the marina at a certain time because it's a safety issue.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

I don't think this about where where's the where's the place that you you were saying that they're parking on the highway. Is that is that on 16? Where where was that happen?

SPEAKER_02 16:21

It's on highway three, uh, right north of the Hood Canal Bridge. So you know, Marine Area 12 for shrimping is the buoy 10 of shrimping in Washington, and probably one of the busiest boat launches is Salisbury, and it's it's got one, two, three, four different spots that you can launch a boat. It's got one dock. If it's low tide, I mean the docks like eight foot long, ten feet long, and it's got an immense amount of pressure. Every single spot's taken up. People are parked blocking people's driveways. They're the main road that feeds off of the boat launch in marina is got cars on both sides. People are going into the ditch because they're trying to park in areas they shouldn't, and now it's backing all the way up on the highway. Like, I've never seen that. I've shrimped in Marine Area 12 for 20 years. I've never seen that. Like the effort is increasing, but we're not getting more boat launches, so we need to spread that effort out. And your budget did increase, so use some of that budget to have coverage and enforcement and to get effort. Like they use airplanes for effort too. I've been out in Area 12, and there's been really low cloud cover. You can't fly a plane in really low cloud cover and have effective coverage and counting the boats with the planes. I I know that there's been you know IFR instrument weather where they haven't flown. So I I think that we really got to start considering and start having conversations with people about opening up all the marine areas to be open up all day. And if that means, hey, you don't extend it one or two extra days, and maybe it's just the season is the season. Hey, it is what it is. Like it is what it is, but at least you gave the working man an opportunity, or you know, the guy that didn't want to fish on Mother's Day, crab on Mother's Day, or on Father's Day, and he works Monday through Friday. Hey, he at least he got a time to do that.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

Yeah, didn't you have a Mother's Day? Wasn't that wasn't that what the opener was? Did you had a Mother's Day opener?

SPEAKER_03 18:22

Yes, yeah, yes, wife's thinking. And it was fine, and it was Father's Day for the it's just we gotta stop that.

SPEAKER_02 18:28

Like that's gotta stop. The other thing that I brought up is you know, there's commercial fisheries, treaty and non-fishery fisheries that take place, and there's uh recreational opportunities, and it's some of the fisheries, like when you fish for uh salmon on the commercial side, the treaty and non-treaty, it rotates one year. The tribes go work first, the other year, you know, the non-treaty goes first. And so I just brought up, I'm like, hey, what why don't we just mix the schedule up? Why don't state go first? Why doesn't the recreational anglers go first? And you know, the response was, well, you know, treaty fisheries have fishermen that also do other things. They harvest sea urchin, they harvest gooey duck, they may be they may be fishing, and you know, if we were to move the schedule around, maybe there would be like two fisheries going on at the same time and they couldn't do both. Well, I get that, I respect that. There have been plenty of times in the past where shrimp days landed on halibut days when halibut wasn't wide open, and I had to decide what I wanted to do. Did I want a shrimp or did I want to oh, did I want to go halibut fishing? And I had to make a sacrifice, I couldn't do both. So it just needs to be we're co-managing the resource, we need to co-harvest the resource, and we need to do it equally. And I think that there needs to be some consideration on that. But the positive thing is, is you could bring up those things in this Puget Sound crab and shrimp advisory meeting, and they were totally open to discussing it. And if you were to bring something like that up in a Puget Sound advisory meeting, you'd get the rubber middle finger. And so uh, hey, Aaron and team, fantastic job. It was a pleasure being on that call. We'll be on the night, we'll be on a lot of the other ones.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

We'll be on them, we'll be on them moving forward.

SPEAKER_02 20:18

Um commission meeting was next.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

You know, I found a lot of positivity in the commission meeting.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

Um I didn't even know the commission meeting was really a thing. I mean, I didn't know North Falcon really was a thing six months ago. You introduced me to North Falcon. Um, Kelsey Ross with the Conservation Coalition at Washington introduced me to the commission. She said, Hey, you know, there's public comment you can make at the commission meeting. So last month I made comment at the at the commission meeting, and then I was like the only one that was a fisherman that was making comments. So I I kind of rallied some troops. I said, Hey, I need some people to make some comment. And some people are like, the commission meeting's a waste, they don't even respond. Like, let's just let's understand this. The commission is uh volunteers that are appointed to those positions, and they are the ones that are in the intermediary, they they are in charge of the Department of Fish and Wildlife. They are the ones the governor cannot let Kelly Seusswin go or Kelly Cunningham go. They're they're the intermediary between the you know the let the legislature, the governor, and the actual department itself. The Kelly Seusswin reports to the commission. Kelly Cunningham reports to the commission, the entire Department of Fish and Life reports to the commission. So the commission has the ability to fire him, and the bill the commission, you know. Isn't going to be the ones that make the decisions on exactly what they're going to do, but they also are the voting body that weigh into the legal, legal decisions that are made when it comes to the law, when it comes to whack. They're the ones that removed they are the ones that remove spring bear. So I think we need, you know, that's a phenomenal place to start talking. So yeah. Hit it. What did you talk about at the commission? What'd you think about it? This was your first commission.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

I mean, my statement was um, well, for one, I I would probably say that I learned a lot uh from from just listening to public comment and making my my own public comment and and recognizing and then listening to the commission's response to the public comment. Um I just I told what I think is one of the greatest stories that could ever be told, and that's a story of a father taking his son fishing and how important that is. Um, and and how that was for me. Um how I was the son that a father took fishing, and in in that the direction that we see our fisheries going brings into question that that opportunity for that story to continue. So so I had I provided comment that was very broad, general, you know, 10,000 feet. And then reflecting now back on the meeting and and listening to the commissioner's response to public comment and and other folks' public comment. Um, I'm excited to go make comment on the next commission meeting and be more granulal and be more because I because at the end of the meeting, um, and I don't, you know, you're gonna have to excuse me for not knowing all the commissioners' names, but there's a gentleman that felt like he was kind of uh uh mceying the meeting, or he was you know leading the meeting, and he there was about like a two-minute clip that I think you and I pulled from that meeting where they dove into responding to to the recreational fishermen specifically talking about lost opportunity and talking about um how they could tangibly attack that or or or address that and started brainstorming on you know what they could do about that. And one of the things that he said that stuck to me was like that I want you to know, and I quote, I mean, I paraphrase that he said, I want you to know that those comments are not falling on deaf ears. Now, look, I have very slim confidence in the commission, okay? But uh, I will take folks' word um at face value. And and so what that told me when he said that was like we need to come with like proposals. Like, let's let's hopscotch Kelly Cunningham, let's hopscotch Jake Rice, let's like get past those folks and let's take a policy measure. Uh I mean, even hopscotch director, the director, director Suzwind. And let's go straight to the commission and bring them a legit policy matter with something behind it, and maybe they'll listen and maybe they'll see some sense in it. And and look, like we know the level of confidence is very low. Um, it's very low, rightfully so. But it basically told me um that here is an avenue for us to bring some form of tangible, collective, um, reasonable suggestion to policy, and I think they will discuss it. I think they will.

SPEAKER_02 26:14

Completely agree. One of the other main reasons that I think that it's super important that we do is because of the antis. Talk about the antis. Were you surprised at how many people were animal rights activists, anti-fishing and hunting people making comment?

SPEAKER_01 26:30

All age groups, all um places of the state. We had a high school student talking about Wolverines. Uh, we had um, you know, older folks, and and I don't want to discard those people. Um they come from a place of goodness, I'm sure, but they've drastically outnumbered the folks who are um a proponent of consumptive conservation, and and and I and I think it's unfortunate that there's this perception in the world that harvesters, whether they're hunters or fishermen, that they don't care about conservation. Um, I mean, I think someone made a comment once on a on one of our social media platforms about um getting involved in a conservation group, and I was and I my reply to him was well I already am. I'm I'm I'm a member of the largest conservation group that there is, and that and that's being a hunter, a hunter and a and a fisherman. And and so it's alarming that when it comes to public outreach or public um comment, we're drastically outnumbered by folks who do not see consumptive conservation uh as a real thing, or like that they don't they don't see that folks like you and I who value this resource and the opportunity to to to consume this resource, they don't they don't think that we care about the conservation of it. And that's alarming. Um and I think there are there are platforms, there are people who have platforms that claim to um want to encourage an increased participation, but they're not there, and they're not they're not doing what they're asking folks to do, and so like if we wanted to do a call to action on on some of this opportunity for advocating um for our opportunities to hunt and fish, then the big names in the room or the big names that have platforms, like you need to be there too. And it can't just be you and I, or it can't just be the couple folks that we've inspired to go speak. Um, and and hats off to the folks that we did inspire to go speak, and and we know who they are. I mean, they crushed a good friend of mine. Yeah, yeah, a good friend of mine, Ryan Ostrom. He he made sure that he was it was awesome. Art Tatchel had public comment, Carl Nyman had public comment. Crushed it. Uh but we need so much more, Philip. We need so much more.

SPEAKER_02 29:45

There were people that I don't even know their names, but they sent me messages. Hey, hopefully my comment was good. Like, thank you. You know, they may have never even showed up to Nork at the Falcon, but they might not even have been in the state. I I wasn't in the state, I was 3,000 miles away, 2,000 miles away on Zoom making the comments. A lot of people are like, Well, I don't have time to go to Olympia. I you know, I I get it, but you do have time to make a three-minute call on Zoom. And you could be in your car, you could be on the side of the road, you could be at work. Just make that just make a little statement. You it doesn't have to be scientific, it just has to be, hey, I fished. This is how long I fished. Uh, I know that a lot of my tax dollars goes to this, and my fishing opportunity has been reduced. And I feel like the people that are advocating aren't being heard, please do everything that you can to make sure that we have the maximum amount of opportunity to harvest fish or hunt here in the state of Washington, please. And you know, it it's impactful, it's absolutely impactful. But when the commission all they hear is you guys need to stop fishing, leave all the fish for the orcas, you guys need to stop hunting, fish have feelings, you know, fish like then the commission. That's all the commission hears, that's all the commission thinks. And I'm not trying to bash the people that are conservationists like or are activists. I'm just trying to, there's gotta be a balance. It can't be, you know, 90% activists on there. I made I made two comments, I had two topics that I talked about. I wanted to talk about waste, I wanted to talk about money because budget's a big thing, budget's gonna be a big thing. If you fish and you hunt, you need to know that budget is gonna be a problem here in Washington State. And I talked about the fact that we've spent probably over a million dollars developing this app, this electronic catch reporting app. And there's a major loophole in there. And I am frustrated about that app. I'm pissed off about that app. That app should be a success, it should be an avenue for us to get a lot better data, a lot better numbers to the department from a variety of different ways. And this was the department's opportunity to make that thing work. They, the Senate or the legislature gave the department money in 2016, that's 10 years ago, to start this development of this app. We are the 35th state in the country that got the app. The 35th. Is that true? Yes. That was right at the commission meeting. The CIO, the chief uh IT officer, whatever his name, an information technology officer, said right, he did a statement at the very end of this six-hour meeting on Friday, June 12th. If you don't believe me, get on there and listen to the whole six hours. I've listened to it about three times. And he said, we are the 35th state that came up with the electronic catch reporting app. Well, we all know we have the most complex fishery on the planet. We have we have the most probably the most data-driven fishery on the planet. If anybody needs to be in with the new data or AI or technology, it needs to be freaking Washington state. If anybody has a budget like that could probably afford to do that, it's the state of Washington. So the 35th state to do it. So we we had all these other people to use as guinea pigs to see what worked and what didn't. Seven years ago. So we could have mimicked off them, and it's been an absolute colostomy bag, complete and absolute colostomy bag from issues, from bugs. You got to have two or three different apps to try and execute fisheries. And the part the problem that really bugged me was I found a loophole in the app where you can either take a burner phone from your your from your nightstand that you haven't been using in months and years and years.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

Do you need to describe the loophole?

SPEAKER_02 33:53

Yes, I'm gonna describe the loophole. Okay, I've described it to the commission. I'm gonna describe it on here. Because this is not Fox News, this is not CNN, this is an avenue where we can talk about things that are uncomfortable, and if it makes you uncomfortable, then this should be a reason why you should fix it faster. Because as of right now, the issue is still there in the app. Well, make a disclaimer, you don't you don't support this. No, I do not support it at all. I want the information to be accurate. I want the I want I think that 99% of people don't want to do the wrong thing. I think that there's one percent of the user group that are gonna do the wrong thing, you know, if they can get away with it, they're gonna do it. And whether there's a loophole or not, they're still probably gonna do it. Hence the guy that's catching fish from the nookstack on TikTok right now. Like you, he's just gonna do it. Whether you can or can't, he's an idiot. So you can put the app in airplane mode, and then you can punch your fish, leave it in airplane mode, it'll show us punch so you can circumvent enforcement without getting in trouble. And then when you get home, you just delete the app and then you reinstall it. And guess what? Voila, the punch is gone. You can go have unlimited deer harvest, you can go fish for King Salmon in the morning, go at lunch, go back again at dinner. Nobody will even know the wiser.

SPEAKER_01 35:14

You can take it. I don't think you're the only one that could identify this. Let's like I do not think that you're the smartest guy in the state that ever f'd around with the app and figured this out. I do not think that. I mean, I think you're smart, but to uh I gotta call my kid down to get YouTube to work on the television.

SPEAKER_02 35:36

Like, I'm not the smartest tool in the shed when it comes to technology. And I figured that out. Like, I'm not some hacker who spent 52 hours in his garage uh drinking jolt trying to figure out how I could make a freaking app, you know. Miss So here's the problem. I told the department about it two or three weeks ago, and I didn't just call the hotline, I didn't just call IT. You did not, I sent it right to the top. Said, hey, there's this issue. I think that maybe it should be addressed. And I sent a several other text messages about some other stuff. No problem, we're working on it. Okay, cool. Week goes by, nothing. Two weeks goes by, nothing. Dude, Facebook goes down, and literally within hours it's back up, like the biggest profile. Like tick Twitter goes down, anything. There you go.

SPEAKER_01 36:36

Any any prominent corporate app, anything, any purchasing app, any any picture, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:45

They that it's all hands on deck. Let's fix it. The department doesn't care, they are. I'm gonna start saying this, the busiest, non-busy people on the planet, and they don't do anything about it. So when we get all the way to the commission meeting and you still haven't fixed this issue, that's a huge loophole. Hey man, I'm gonna make you famous.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

You crapped on the limit, you crapped on the I don't did you even know that the uh the the IT, the head of IT was gonna be on the commission meeting. Did you even know that the commission had that on their agenda? Nope.

SPEAKER_02 37:20

And I wasn't even trying to I wasn't even trying to make like a big deal out of the app. What I was trying to do was show that the Department of Fish and Wildlife wastes money and that we have a budget issue, and that this is a reason that they waste the money. They had 10 years and a million dollars to fix it. They didn't, I mean, to make it right, they didn't make it right. So we need to do more with less. Like we need to figure out how this budget that keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger can be we can get more with less. We can be more efficient. Like Twitter is running more efficiently, like a lot of places across the country right now are having to lay off people and run more efficiently. How can we get more with less? That's what I was trying to do. Then when I five hours later, four hours later, after the statement, I made the statement. Here comes doot doot doot doot the IT guy making a comment to the commission about I mean, making a presentation about the lexicon and hey man, everything's going great. We're unveiling it. We got 29% of the people signed up, we're getting data left and right. The app is phenomenal. We unveiled it like the paper thing was kind of a nightmare. We actually had to unveil it a little bit earlier because we ran out of paper. That's another problem that I have. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

Don't yeah, okay, yes.

SPEAKER_02 38:31

The license gets printed on an eight and a half by 11. You get emailed a PF. You can just go print 25 copies and you have 25 catch cards, or you could just take your license and go z, you know, take it to the copier or zip scanner or something, and you have unlimited catch cards all of a sudden. It's like the same thing, it's almost worse. You could not replicate that waterproof paper thing, but it's really easy to replicate the eight and a half by 11. So, anyways, I this IT guy is talking about all this, and one of the commissioner, Commissioner Garcia, goes, Hey guy, one of the callers four hours ago said there was an issue with the app, and he's found a fatal flaw. Is this what how would you weigh in on that? And the guy goes like this actually, we knew about that during development. We knew that about a year ago. I'm like, You you knew about that a year ago and you still didn't get it fixed? You suck. And I went on, I went on a rant on a content saying you suck, you suck, you suck, because they do suck. I called the the the company that actually made the app got bought out by a bigger company. I called that company, I talked to them, and they go, Yeah, I mean we know the wait a minute, wait a minute. The developer of the app, yes, Terra Technology, Terra Technology, it's a Maryland company, Maryland Corporation, signed the original contract with the Department of Fish and Wildlife. They are the developer, they sold to a company called Brandt Systems. They got bought out or sold. I called Brandt Systems to talk to them. They make these apps all across the state. This isn't just the only one, they make licensing apps everywhere. I just talked to them wholeheartedly. Hey, what's the deal? Well, yeah, the data isn't hosted on the phone. Um, the data is, I mean, it's hosted in the cloud. And so when the phone and the cloud aren't communicating, when you're out of cell phone service or when you're in airplane mode, then the data doesn't store there. And so when you delete the app, the data deletes with the app. And then when you reinstall it, it just has the old data that's up in the cloud. So yeah, the fix is to get the data to be stored on the phone. They're like for an Apple phone, it's relatively easy, but for an Android Android phone, because of all the protections, it's kind of a complex thing. There is a way to do it, and it's not an easy fix, it's like re-real re rebuild the whole app. Like, this isn't getting fixed anytime soon. And the department isn't doing anything to fix it. Call brand systems and ask them yourselves what the department of fish and wildlife is doing with it.

SPEAKER_01 41:06

That feels like a comment that you can't completely stand behind. Can you completely say that the department's not doing anything to fix it? Do you know that?

SPEAKER_02 41:15

I do not know for a fact that the department's not doing anything to fix it. What I do know is the department's not doing anything to fix it fast enough, it should be fixed by now.

SPEAKER_01 41:25

Okay, I can jive with that. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 41:28

And there is a solution with brand systems, and they're not getting the solution fixed with brand systems. I know that. Yeah, and a person from the public shouldn't be able to call a company and start discussing it with them and you know get to a resolution with it, and then the department can't get to a resolution with it. Like it needs to be fixed. That's a problem. Yeah, that data needs to be fixed. So I like the fact that the department, the the commissioners are listening, they listened to my comment, wrote it down, remembered it six hours later, four hours later, the CFO comes up there. For me, it's it's it's a shame that the department knew about this issue and they still unveiled the app.

SPEAKER_01 42:10

Like you you knew about yes, that tells me two things. One, it means that they're listening to your public comment. Yeah, and two, uh, that they recognized that that's an issue that they do not want to have with you know the their unveiling of this brand new thing to Washington State fisheries and and hunting, to Washington State game management. And enough for them. And again, you had no idea that the IT guy, the guy responsible to some of this, uh was gonna be at the commission meeting. Um it was enough to strike them to be able to go ask him, you know, what's what's the story on this?

SPEAKER_02 43:08

The reason I'm so pissed off about it is not because people can subvent it and go out and poach or go get a way more salmon than they should on one day. The reason I'm pissed off about it is because I know how important that app is. I've talked to Noah, I've talked to the co-managers, and I know that the fact that we have all these $200,000 boats out there doing test fishery data is because our catch reporting data is not accurate. It is just not. We don't turn our catch cards in at the end of the year. People lie when they turn those catch cards in, they lie about how many sub legals get caught, and so the co managers are forcing a second layer of surveying to get accurate data. And I know that if that app was accurate, if the if a group of people, whether it's the Majority or a large group of those people turned in accurate data with the app and it was used in line with the test fishery data for a period of time, and that we were showed within a margin of error that it's the same, that a lot of this really expensive monitoring that we could have to do could probably be extremely reduced, if not completely go away if the app data was accurate.

SPEAKER_00 44:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:26

And the department failed on really and the co-managers. I've talked to the co-managers, they were excited about this app. They were they had their eyes on this app. Like, hey, maybe this we can get some data from this app. Maybe it's going to be real. And it's not, it's embarrassing. I talked to the co-managers after that commission meeting. I told them, hey, I found this issue. And I told them that they need to apply pressure to the Department of Fish and Wildlife. And guess what? I guarantee you they are. I guarantee you on that means mid-season stuff. When I told them they could take that when they I told them what, hey, go out there and buy a fish and wildlife license. Go print it on eight and a half by 11. And they're like, you can print it on eight and a half by 11 piece of paper. I go, yeah, go try it yourself.

SPEAKER_01 45:10

Like I was against the statement you're making about uh pressure. Yeah. That's presuming that you bringing this to light or you identifying this and discussing it at the commission meeting, um, and your posts and your your content about it, that that would apply pressure to the department to get this fixed. I have uh credible reason to believe that it didn't do that. That um I heard from high-level department staff that you disclosing that at the commission meeting and you disclosing that into your content didn't put any extra pressure on the department to fix it. Um vehemently described as no, no, it did not put extra pressure on them to fix it. The concern I have with this flaw in a second, let's let's let's talk about that just a second.

SPEAKER_02 46:21

If my comments at the commission didn't put any pressure on the department at all, and they're like, Yeah, he's just another guy talking, why are they talking about me to you? Why are they bringing that topic up?

SPEAKER_01 46:40

Well, the the the conversation, and we'll maybe get to more details of this conversation, but the conversation was well if if you heard someone talking poorly about something that you had your hands in and you knew that it was a problem with it, but you were hoping no one knew about it, and then and then someone came out and brought it to light, you'd probably be kind of butthurt about it too. You know, you'd be like, Oh, you know, you're that's that's the that's the exact example. I I don't know how else to describe it. The the department knew that there was a problem with it. The IT guy outlined that he said they knew about it a year ago. Um they were hoping no one would find it out, and then it gets brought to the attention, and then rather than take responsibility for the fact that there's this problem and they didn't do anything to fix it, they're just gonna shame the folks who identified it.

SPEAKER_02 47:42

Um shame me all you want. Uh, you you could shame me all you want, and you don't have to fix it, but I'm gonna force you to fix it because the co-managers will make you fix it, like they are gonna make you fix it. I've done the tribes will a hundred percent make them fix it. They are gonna hold like it needs to get fixed, and it should get fixed. People shouldn't have the ability to do that, and you know what?

SPEAKER_01 48:06

It it could in the future of it being paper license in general. I don't give a shit about whether you identified this airplane mode crap or not. I don't care about that. The the concept that we have right now where getting a catch card, unless you unless you are digital on the app, you your catch card for whether it's salmon how bit crab uh whatever it may be can come on a piece of 8x11 piece of paper. You're telling me that a 400 million dollar or uh uh agency, an annual 400 million dollar agency that the the best way they found to circumvent this paper shortage molarchy is that they're gonna have their license dealers print off catch cards on and and tags in in game harvest tags on eight by eleven pieces of paper. Stupid it's 2026, stupid. Like, do they not recognize that like there's a flaw in that to where people could photocopy and print? Like, I just don't I don't I don't know. And and and the more we talk about this, the more uncomfortable I get because I really don't want people doing that. Like, I really don't want that. Like, I we start this conversation talking about how hunters and and fishermen and fisher people are are part of the largest conservation group there is on planet earth that we care more about the resource than than any other advocacy group there is. And so I I I but I know there's bad apples in any user group on planet earth, and I really don't want people to to do that, and it almost makes me more mad that the department deployed this program and left such an open avenue for for those boat bad apples to exploit.

SPEAKER_02 50:29

Get your popcorn, it's gonna be interesting how how it gets fixed and how long it's gonna take to get fixed. But I'm super excited to see it get fixed because it's gonna get fixed. The second part of my comment was about I I said at the very end, I said, hey, if yet if the commissioners still have more time on their hands, other than babysitting the department on not spending a bunch of money frivolously, could you please walk across the street from the NRB building and go engage the attorney general about the Skakomish and Shahalas video? And I swear on everything I love, I know as people start listening to this, they're gonna think that I got some inside scuttle butt about who was coming to talk today. But on the same commission meeting, a little bit later, the attorney general actually spoke to the commission. Joe Pinesco. Yeah, I mean, this is a topic that you have you and I haven't even talked about. We're gonna just uh the attorney general, the attorney general. Joe Pinesco is an attorney, he works for the attorney general. He's appointed to the Department of Fish and Wildlife to engage on a variety of different topics. He spoke, he did about an hour-long presentation about access to private tide lands, and he gave the history in Washington State about how parcels and deeds were created, how people were selling tide lands, how the tide land disputes, navigable river waterway disputes, uh, how a large bodies of water were created, a lot of tide flats were filled in and developed. He did a phenomenal presentation about all this stuff, and I and I was like, that's interesting. This is the guy that the commission would probably go talk to about this skakomish, nobody fishing in the skakhomish except the tribes, or the Shahalas issue where we go to fish. Yeah, so I just took the dude's name, I put it into AI, said, Hey, because you try I've tried to call the AG for six months about a variety of different issues, and you never can get anybody on the phone. You can email them and they'll email you back and basically say, Hey, we don't represent people, we rep we are here to represent government agencies. So the attorney general represents government agencies and they'll engage on things on topics on behalf of a government agency. But since you are a person, you don't represent a government agency, you need to go out and get private litigation, uh, you know, a private lawyer to get advice on those topics. So I just put this Joe Pinesco into chat GBT, popped up his telephone number, called him up this week. This Joe. Hey Joe, this is Philip. How are you? Had a candid conversation with the attorney general for about 25 minutes. I listened to your I listened to your uh your your absolute huh? He's not the attorney general, he worked for the attorney general. He works for the attorney general, he is a lawyer for the attorney general. He's considered senior counsel. I think he's worked there for 26 years. He represents the Department of Fish and Wildlife on a variety of things, and he and I talked about the Skakomish issue in depth, very candidly. We talked about the Shahalas issue very openly. Uh, we talked about other laws that uh other case laws that are examples that relate to those type of issues. And I just thought it was kind of cool that I had made those comments. He came in and talked and made a connection, and we gotta I gotta talk. I took a lot from it. Um, I have quite a few things working on those two cases behind the scenes and to try and you know protect what I'm doing behind the scenes on those two issues. Uh I I won't kind of talk exactly what we talked about, but uh I thought it was really cool that I got to talk to him and get some get some insight on what the attorney general is doing with the Department of Fish and Wildlife. But I think that's a great segue into I I was just gonna ask.

SPEAKER_01 54:42

Yep, I know where you're going.

SPEAKER_02 54:43

Go ahead. Yeah, why don't let's fire away, buddy? Let's hear it.

SPEAKER_01 54:46

Well, dude, you you um you uh you you found a topic that you wanted to make some content on, and and I I personally think that it might have been one of the more controversial um one of the more controversial topics that you chose to to take on. Um which is which is the you know the scoke issue and and how um we have been in a battle wdf and co-managers the Skokomish tribe have been in a battle on the ability for recreational fishermen to to have fishing opportunities on the Scokomish River. And and we don't have those opportunities because they have um essentially claimed that the Scokomish River is uh is is is under their their jurisdiction and control, and they've decided they did not want recreational fishermen on the on the on the river. What's the reason why they didn't want recreational fishermen on the river?

SPEAKER_02 56:10

Because they believe that we took craps on the side of the river, and the crap went into the river, and then it closed down shellfish beds because the river drained into the hood canal, and it closed down shellfish beds, so they couldn't shellfish harvest one year, and so they believe that um recreational anglers are dirty and they uh don't take care of the resources, and so they feel like that inspired you to do what pardon so and that inspired you to dig into this topic and and and do what? I don't think that it inspired me. Um to answer to your question, I made a post about the skakomish river issue, and uh I obtained some video footage. Uh I've got about an hour worth of footage of the Skakomish reservation um from a car that was driving through the reservation, and the camera uh took video of the reservation, and I took some of the clips from that video and posted on the on the internet uh examples of things that I felt were examples of not being good stewards to the land that were right next to the river. So if we back up a little bit, um I fished on the Scakomis River back in 2007, 2008. Before I even had a boat, I fished on the Scakomis River. It's one of the rivers that got me into fishing. Um, King Salmon in that river are are phenomenal.

SPEAKER_00 57:54

Uh, I I remember driving down to off of the Hood Canal. It's on the southern Hood Canal, yeah, southern part of the Hood Canal.

SPEAKER_02 58:02

It's got a hatchery on it that has a flat outright phenomenal king return year after year. They put out it's a state-run hatchery that puts out a ton of king salmon, and they come back in a huge abundant numbers. There's a coho run on that river as well. You could keep two kings and four coho. I mean, it was just it was a phenomenal fishery. Um, you'd go there, it's all bank access. You couldn't go through on a drift boat, you can't go through a jet sled. So anybody could go fish it. You didn't have to have a big expensive boat or or know how to row, you didn't have to hike in. You could get a little pass from the little hunter farms that's down there. And you just walk in, pull your car up to the to the grass field, you walk less than 100 yards, you go out there and fish. It's a big deep river. Um, it's probably the size of the Piollop River, maybe a little bit smaller than the Piollop River in depth and width, and phenomenal fishing, absolutely phenomenal fishing. And one year the Skakoma Stribe, there was a lot of conflict between recreational fishermen and tribal fisheries that took place. There was a there was a ton. I can remember being on there where recreational anglers didn't show their good side.

SPEAKER_00 59:20

And what was the method of fishing?

SPEAKER_02 59:23

Drifting. You I mean drifting. You couldn't use bait, so you know, you drift corkies or you drift yarn. You could, you know, any any type of yarnies. Um, you couldn't use a bot, you couldn't use a floating device, so it was all turned flossing, flossing, spinners, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:41

Like we see it with the salmish, like right. It was extending, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:46

It's a tidally and flourish river. So you know, the tide would come in, the tide would go out. Uh the tribes, Gil Netta, drift netted through there, and there was there was times where there was nets in the river at the same time that there was recreational anglers fishing, and that just created conflict. That was a problem. That's co-manager's fault. You know, yeah, they there shouldn't that those two fisheries aren't compatible?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:10

That means that that's that's WDFW and our treaty tribes. That is not one that is that is a management flaw.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:18

Yeah. So then they then they got to a point where they didn't have them fishing at the same time. So the tribes would fish a couple days a week, and then recreational anglers would fish a couple days a week. You'd always see a couple of nets, you know, they got stuck or tangled up and it kind of ruined a hole because they couldn't get the net completely out. And until the river blew out, and that net blew out of the river, you know, that hole was kind of tainted. But there was conflict, there was flat outright conflict between tribal fishermen and recreational anglers when they took place. And people left messes everywhere. I mean, you you go anywhere with a large group of people, whether it's the Piallop Fair or to the Sportsman Show, like the dumpsters overflow, you know, the the parking lots gets dirty, you know, there's lots of people in there and it's not controlled, and there's not a a good effort of porta potties. People were doing things that they flat outright shouldn't do. And uh one year the biotoxin level in the Southern Hood Canal for shellfish triggered a shellfish closure, and so commercial treaty harvest of those shellfish couldn't take place, and the tribe just got fed up with it, and they said no more. And they were working behind the scenes to try and assert ownership of the river. You know, there's a disagreement, I'm not gonna get into that whole disagreement. If you want to Google it, you can, but as of right now, it is a navigable river waterway, the reservation ends at the river's edge that is disputed between the state and the tribes. There are different documents that support both. There's some documents from the 1800s that support that it ended up against the river. There's some says it goes all the way across, and so that's not for you and I to figure out. The bottom line is there's a flat outright ton of fish that come back, and it's a it was a it's a co-managed river.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:11

And so the because you made, I'm sorry, I don't I want you to finish just because you made content on it, there's not like um this is an ongoing issue that that the WDFW is continuing to have and work through with the Skacoma tribe. Matter of fact, in North the Falcon, uh director Suzewind even spoke on this very topic, and we know we've seen uh a letter that he has put out there um that that I think was released a couple years ago that 2019. Yeah, that they're working years ago. Yeah, they're working on um how to to find a a an avenue to come to some form of agreement on this. So it just because you made content on it does not mean this is a new issue.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:02

No, so I did some research on it because I really wanted to know. I've done a bunch of research. You should do a bunch of research and come up with your own opinion on who owns the river. I have my opinion. Based off everything that I've researched, I believe the United States, it's a navigable river waterway, and that the tribes don't owe the river. The reservation does not come to the other side of the river. That's what I personally believe based off my information. A lot of people could disagree with me on that. But I, in the research of why the fishery closed down, I found that there's never been a decision on it. It's never gone to court, and the federal government have never made a decision on who owns it. The tribe hasn't pushed this issue to federal court and made the you know Supreme Court make a decision on it, and the state hasn't pushed the federal government to push the issue. The there's just an opinion. There's an opinion from the solicitor for the uh from the Department of Interior, solicitor general. There's a yeah, opinion on who they own, which it's only an opinion. And this, if you go look at you know how it's harvested federally, it's not held in trust for the Scakomish tribe. As of right now, it's the United States of America, it is a navigable river waterway. And the Scokomish tribe one year said if the Department of Fish and Wildlife attempts to put a fishery on this river, we will not side the list of agreed fisheries with the rest of the 21 treaty tribes, which would mean that no fishery for salmon could take place in the state of Washington, other than the local has to be signed by all treaty tribes. The Skokes got to sign it. If the Skokes don't sign it, so they just they're they're weaponizing the fishery, they're holding all the other fisheries hostage and basically telling the Department of Fish and Wildlife if you try attempt to do that, we're not signing, nothing's taking place. So they're like, okay, fishery on the skoke, all these other fisheries, fishery on the skoke, like, okay, we'll just not have the fishery on the skoke and everybody. So I did some research on there, and there's a statement um made to the Kitsap Sun by Guy Miller back 10 years ago. He makes a statement to the Kitsap Sun and he says, the reason that we are asserting ownership of this river, the reason that we're using the fishery to uh as as leverage is because our people were raised to take care of the river. And our people were raised to not do that. Our people were raised to take care of the land. Just Google it. Google Guy Miller, Scakomish River, Kitsap Sun. You'll see the statement word for word. And that resonated with me. So I asked the Skokomish tribe, I called Guy Miller, I got his number. I talked, I've talked to him three or four times. I said, Hey, would you ever consider sitting down? Of talking. Nah, you got to talk to the I'm kind of oh elderly. I do hold the chair position, but you know, the rest of the tribal council kind of decides that you need to talk to Tom Strong. So I've talked to Tom Strong two times. He's vice chair of the Skocomish River, and I've had you know frank conversations with him. And he goes, Absolutely, never will there be a recreational fishery on that river ever. I said, Well, can I go on that river and just film it? Can I go take do a documentary? He goes, No, it doesn't benefit the tribe. You can't do that. I go, Well, what uh, you know, my people tell me that you don't own it. I know that you guys think that you do own it. What are you gonna do? Well, we'll call the federal marshals and have you arrested. So I've talked to him round and round and round and round again. I've talked to federal marshals, I've talked to the attorney generals, I've talked to the Army Corps of Engineers, I've talked to the co I've talked to a lot of different people. I'm working on something with that river right now, but I'm at a point where I have this footage, I hear those words that we don't think that recreational anglers did, you know, took care of the river. We're good stewards.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:07

Pardon? That were good stewards, recreational anglers were not good stewards, not good stewards, and I was there.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:13

We were not good stewards, like we did not take care of the river. We could have put way more porta potties and way more dumpsters, and we could have cleaned it up. And yes, we've got our wrist slap on the hill. We have not fished on that river for a long time, over 10 years, 11 years now.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:30

Yeah, over a decade.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:31

I yeah, I think that there needs to be like a test fishery. Like instead of just holding us out completely, we get the point. We got to take care of the river. Let's just put a small coho fishery, a short little window on there, two, three weeks. The Department of Fish and Wildlife, recreational anglers, or Puget Sound Anglers, or somebody will fund porta potties, dumpsters, like the whole nine yards. We'll let's just see if we can make it work. They're not open to any of those discussions at all, period. At all. End of story. So you went through you went for a drive. No, I obtained video. Oh, okay. Okay, okay. And to protect the person that recorded the video, I have the video. I obtained the video, and I clipped out the portions of the video that I that are inside of the flood that are, you know, right up butt up next to the river. That whole area floods. I mean, if every winter or every fall, when you see video of chum salmon swimming across the highway, like nine out of ten of those river, those pictures come from the Skakomish River flooding, and the fish over the highway. So there's floods all over the reservation, like the whole reservation floods, and there's just there's a road on there's just trash. You just go through there and there's garbage, and there's just there's stuff that that is not to me, is not a is an example that hey, yes, there are people, recreational anglers that didn't do a good job, but there's a lot of recreational anglers that went there and fished and didn't leave their garbage and didn't go take a crap in the woods. And we want to be the ones that are given an opportunity to do it right, so please give an opportunity. Like, don't take the one percent, five percent, or ten percent and exclude all the rest of the people because there was some bad apples. We'll we'll fix those bad apples, okay? And I just wanted to show I wanted to show the world that both sides aren't perfect, like just because you say that your people are good stewards of the land, the majority of you guys are very good stewards of the land, but there are some people that aren't, and just because there's one or two people that aren't doesn't mean that you should exclude the entire user group, and so that's what I made the content for to show the world that sure sure, sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:50

Uh it and and I don't know if I disagree with the um the purpose or the the the cause. I don't think I disagree with that. I think I I think I disagree a little bit with um with with the optics of the content. Because, you know, we came on here last time to kind of have like a I don't want to say a kumbaya or nothing, but like you know, like we are hearing things about the content that's going out there and and who it's inspiring and the type of rhetoric it's inspiring. And you you and I both you specifically wanted to make a point about how you don't um you don't appreciate the type of rhetoric that that is seen on some of this content. And so when now like I don't I again as we said at the start of the show, like I am not badger fishing, I'm a resident guest on the Badger Badger Fishing podcast. Uh but you know we we work very transparently, whether it's in agreement or not. And um I I didn't I thought that the content was definitely going to flirt with the line of if you can ask to be respectable and lower the rhetoric, and if you were increasing the rhetoric. And so you just made a statement, you just made a comment about the recreational fisheries and the the one to five percent and the bad apples, and to not not judge us on the one to five percent and the bad apples. Yet the content that was put out, it it kind of you kind of did the same thing on the other side, like you kind of exploited the the tribal one to five percent, or you know, the one to five percent that we see on reservation lands, um, or tribal communities that that are the bad apples.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:24

I I expect I made content about it. They restricted a fishery for 10 years with it. Like, there's uh I can't just sit here and say, yeah, you you're you you're right. We did poop on the ground, we just will never fish there again. Like, yeah, we didn't put our trash in the dumpster, we're never gonna fish there again. Like, you're using that year after year, you're using the one to five percent year after year as a reason why you will not sign the loaf. Like, you're using our bad apples, but then you get upset when I use your one to five percent one time in one video that lasts 15 seconds. You gotta be able to have an uncomfortable conversation about it. It's not right, it's not right either way. It's it's not right for somebody to have 25 years of garbage in their front yard and 850 beer cans off their back porch where mice and rodents and rats, and it's a health hazard. That's not okay. If I did it in my neighborhood or my in-laws did it in their neighborhood, like it would it would you the hoa would do something about it, they would fix it. Like we we need to do stuff to fix it, we need to do stuff to fix it for everybody. There should people shouldn't feel like that's okay, they should get the funding or the help or the garb free garbage tickets or whatever to fix it. And I should be able to I don't we can't just always turn the eye to this stuff, we gotta talk about it. The home issue in Seattle.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:49

We gotta we gotta show it. I I don't think that it I don't think that we can um I don't think that we can turn or or we we can't not understand how there could be some pushback or some blowback on trying to exploit some of the you know some of the black eyes of of our tribal communities uh as like hey look at look at you like you wanted to do you you you were making a uh a claim about us, but hey, look at look at you look at you. And and uh the only point I'm making because I again I preface this with saying I think that that is that you're on the right path, and I think that it's it's just to start having that conversation about like, hey, if if we can't have a fishery on that river because we have bad apples, then you know, like let's not be naive. I totally can get that. Like, we should at least start having the conversation about how we can improve. I'm just saying that if if there is a sour taste in folks' mouths about badger fishing, or if there's blowback about badger fishing, uh, and you know, like, dude, we still have Solid Collins, they want to call you a racist. I know you personally, you are not a racist, and you are a staunch advocate for the the concepts that our that our tribal co-managers bring into our fisheries and the conservation thereof. I know that. The only point that I wanted to make sure that I made was that we can't be ignorant or naive to why there would be blowback on that type of content because exposure of the bad apples um and leveraging the bad apples against a user group is is probably not the way that any user group should try to get what they want. And I'm gonna say that for both sides. Um, co-managers should not leverage our bad apples, recreational uh participants, bad apples, they should not leverage that against us on reasons why we should be infringed on in this same decision.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:22

When they when they do, are when they do, are you supposed to just sit there and take it or are you supposed to have a counter-argument to the conversation? The P tribe is not limiting us to shrimp because there's a bunch of homeless people in downtown Tacoma, they're not. No, no, they're not. Okay, you the sequel the the there's fisheries that take place all over the state, and there's homeless problems everywhere, and those other treaty tribes are not reducing our opportunity because of our problems. We both have problems. The Skacomish are specifically there's no biological reason why we can't fish there, there's no conservation reason why we can't fish there. The only reason that they think that we cannot fish there is because they think we crap in the river, yeah, not stewards of the land. And I think it's the call, it's the pot calling the kettle black. What I disagree with, I disagree with a lot of the comments. I don't like the comments. And I have tons of footage that I could make of tribal fisheries that I don't think are okay, like gill nets in bays where the tides have gone out and there's 30 or 40 king salmon stuck in a gill net when the tide's out and it's 110 degrees out, and they're just getting baked and their eyeballs are turning in. Like, I don't make content on that. That's their right to do how harvest the fish, how they want to. But that you know, those user groups aren't restricting our fisheries. If that's what they want, the way they use those impacts, use those impacts that way. If you want to catch your fish and let them rot for your quota, by all means do that. You have the right to do it. But the Skokes are the Skokomish tribe is redu is keeping us from doing that. What I don't like though is people getting in the comments and saying, tribes are dirtbags, or we need to we need to renegotiate the treaties, or the bolt decision, stupid. Like that is not the discussion that I want to have. And that's what creates this rhetoric of racism. And I want the discussion to be like, hey, yeah, we suck, but we're not gonna suck anymore. We should give us a chance. They shouldn't restrict us. I had a great fish, I fished there for a lot of years, and I wish I could fish there again. Hey man, I would volunteer to do a dumpster, like I'd help pick clean stuff up. Like those are the conversations that need to take place, those are the productive conversations, but when the scope tribe sees I think there's 1200 comments, and probably 500 of them are people saying that the tribe sucked. Do you really think the skoke tribe's gonna be like next year? Hey, we're gonna consider a fishery, sure. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:56

Do you do you think do you think showing the most sour apple of of all? Do you do you think that that promoted quality conversation?

SPEAKER_02 1:19:11

It got I I believe it's at 300,000 views all over the country. So no matter what, it promoted conversation. It created conversation about the topic. Yeah, there's the the the pin pump. I want to make sure this is clear. I'm not attacking you. I think it got the I think it got the message across. It got the message across. The message is that one user group is restricting the other user group because of garbage on the ground and feces on the ground, and their exact same thing that our fishery was shut down for is taking place on the other side of the river inside of the floodplain, and it shouldn't. Both of them are wrong. Both of them shouldn't have to be used to hold the other person accountable. I shouldn't have to make content on that. You shouldn't have to close our fishery down for it. Let's come together, let's have a reasonable discussion. The only way it's going to get fixed is if people get into a room and talk and there's some compromise. Guy Miller and Tom Strong want nothing to do with any type of conversation about it. Period. They're not open to conversation. Kelly Susan's gone there, Kelly Cunningham's gone there. The director before this, whatever his name was, you know, went there to talk about it. Frank Yerbeck's gone there to talk to him about it. They bring it up at every North of Falcon, and the answer is always no, and it's been no for over a decade. And it shouldn't be no for over a decade. And if it's not, if it's going to continue to be no for over a decade, then there's going to be some litigation that a group, a user group, a federal agency at some point's going to be brought to make the decision. And if they really think that they own the river, if you really think you own the river, go to the federal court, the federal government, and make the federal government make a decision on it and get it put in trust the way every other reservation is in the state of Washington in the United States. But it's not, yeah, it's just a gray area, and you're holding us accountable. So if you don't want to keep us out of it, prove it. Why do you think that they haven't gone to the federal government and had them make a decision on it? Because there's some huge risk there.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:24

So it's not just make a compromise on the fishery. Yeah, you know, and the only reason the only reason that I have brought us down this path, uh, is is to to you know to to spur that out of you, or to spur the conversation out of you, and and frankly, to um to say uh something in um response of like our co-managers. Like, because they feel I can't speak for them. I am not them, and I can't speak for the oppression, and I can't speak for the history of um substance abuse or or any of that. Like I can't speak on on the the trials and tribulations that they have gone through as people. I can't I'm not but uh I felt like it was just and important that we at least talked about it because there's so much uh controversy around that particular piece of content, and but I still think that uh you're bringing light to it is whether whether I or anybody else sees it as being distasteful or not, that's irrelevant. I think the the the most important thing is that there is an issue right now on a prominent river system, uh in a in a in a prominent area that has been a lightning rod and a hot topic for many, many years. And I and I do think that you in your heart of hearts, you just wanted to shed some light on it, and and it's a place that light should definitely be shed on. Um but that's also the beauty of this, right? Like this, that's that's why that's why like you and I work because um because I I I I I will challenge you, and it's not that I'm challenging you, I just I will just ask you to explain and I will say another side of it, uh, and then give you the opportunity to to speak on it. And we need more of that in this world, and it's and you're not mad at me for for questioning the purpose of making that content or what was behind that content, and and I'm not mad at you for making it. Um but I'm happy that we talked about it.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:08

Yeah, I am too. And you know, I I would hope that if any future content is made about that stuff, that people would have constructive comments in the comment period. Like there needs to be constructive, reasonable conversation about that. And you know, if you're a tribal member, like sending me death threats direct messages to me is just as bad. Like that that stuff doesn't need to take place. Yeah, some of the stuff. Yeah, just yeah, yeah, like we're just come on, man. We don't need to talk like that. No, we don't need to have these hateful, cussing, like nasty messages. The comments on both sides are just sometimes egregious, and it doesn't, and you know who knows? Maybe I'll make some more content about it, and I'll just close the comments down, then nobody can say anything about it. All you can do is just watch it, think about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:03

I I think folks are really. I mean, I think it goes maybe it's a part of the times.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:12

Um I won't make content and restrict comments ever, ever, ever, ever. I retract what I just said. I will not do that because that's what the news does. That's what other radio hosts in our state covering these fisheries do. By not talking about some of these tough topics, they're controlling the media, they're controlling the narrative on what needs to take place, and I'm not okay with that. I just probably won't. If you know, if the comments get super nasty, I'm just not gonna talk about it. So if you guys want me to continue to make content about fisheries that restrict recreational fisheries, then you guys need to comment kindly and nicely.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:56

I think I use this phrase a lot, like I talk with whether it's department staff or career-wise or personally. Uh let's be willing to look in a mirror.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:10

Um, and when when we're unwilling to look into a mirror and someone else holds the mirror for you, yeah, um there's a lot of offensiveness that we see in it. Yeah, like like like like if you held a mirror for me and I wasn't willing to look into that mirror, I'd be offended by it. Yeah, and and I think that that I want to make perfectly clear that goes for everyone. Yeah, um, it may not feel good for a user group to see you know the parts of themselves that they're not proud of.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:55

And and it probably sucks to to have that displayed. And and I can say that about shit. Like, I don't want to get too deep, but like let's just say recreational fishermen. I can you mentioned TikTok, North Fork Nooks the Nooksack, which you know they say when it was whatever. Like it is not cool to look at yourself on your own faults if you're not willing to see it and like be willing to say, yeah, I need to fix that. We need to fix that. So um, but also we're talking about a user group that's been attacked for centuries. And um, I don't I don't think I can discredit them for for having some of uh the reaction that we've seen, but that doesn't condone any of some of the rhetoric that we've seen out of whichever side. Be aside, but it's it's all together, so but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:05

Then the uh one of the other big things that's really really been bothering me that I'm starting to weigh in on. I I've made some pretty heavy content about department staff um not doing the right thing, you know. I yeah, and some of the content that made me go semi-viral in the beginning was uh you know, taking aim at department heads. So one of the other things that's really been bothering me is uh that I've started to make some content on is I've started to take aim right back at the department of fish and wildlife because I'm frustrated. I'm frustrated with quite a few things that aren't taking place with the department. You know, I've made that conversation, I had that conversation about the app, and I had some decent communication, lines of communication within high-level people at the department that after I made some of the content about the app, it turned into like radio silence and wouldn't get response to text messages, open conversations and emails that we had going, they just stopped. And there was some quite a bit of untouched or unfinished communication about certain topics that just stopped. And I just I felt like a lot of that was just disingenuous. Um, there's some things that some department staff have said that they would like my help on to make things easier for them from everything from PDRs to some you know public records requests to um some of the content that I've made. And yeah, I've said multiple, I've given those people multiple opportunities to have conversations with me. And whether it's through text message, through email, hey, I'll come down to Olympia and talk to you any in Olympia, whatever it is, I'll make the time to do it. I've reminded them of it, and it just it's not happening. And I I feel like the connections that I've made from where I was six months ago where seven months ago where nobody talked to me, to where you know, in the middle where people would start to talk with me and they'd communicate with me, and there was open two-way dialogue, and hey, we'll get you the answers you need so that you can understand it. It was it just felt like it was all fake. It felt like it was just to appease me so that I wouldn't keep uncovering things or bringing conversations up or having tough conversations about stuff, and I'm just I'm not happy with it.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:50

I'm I'm not started in NOF, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:30:53

Some of that started in NOF, like like we went into NOF and we knew that you had already become this lightning rod. We knew that you had already kind of um well you well you you you kind of started to garner some attention, and um, so there was some unease even when we went into NOF. And I felt like when we got into North of Falcon, and especially coming out of PFMC, we started to kind of like like kind of even it, like we started to um people started to understand you more. And I mean you like we well documented that you came out pretty guns ablazing, and once you took some time to reflect on that and you started to meet with some of these folks, and we started to get into North of Falcon, and we started to have some more conversations and in and deeper um uh I dare I say relationship building. Maybe we started to see how we can maybe do a better job proactively building uh a bridge. So we did. You did. Um, you were given avenues to change change the course a little bit, and and we saw some some productivity occur, and and we were we kind of changed the tune a little bit. You changed your tune a little bit. As those conversations, yeah. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:43

It got and and now where I look at it seven months later, I I honestly feel like it got me nowhere. Like I like I handed out an olive branch to try and mend some of those relationships and maybe get on the same playing field. Like, hey, I'm gonna be involved with these open public discussions. I'm gonna talk about the work that you guys do every single day. I'm gonna make content about it and let the public know. I'm gonna take the time out of my day to do the research, to find out what you guys are doing, and share it on a forum where people that don't have the time to do that can understand and relate to it so that when you guys do things that affect recreational fisheries, you're held accountable to it because nobody's held accountable to it. And so I I created these, I handed out these olive branches. I've gone to Olympia quite a few times. And I I live an hour, almost an hour and a half away from Olympia. And so it's a three-hour round trip drive. Then you go there and you know you talk to somebody for an hour. It's a four hours out of your day. It's half a day to go have a meaningful conversation with department staff to try and create a relationship or to get some change or to figure out how you can do something. And I feel like a lot of those conversations completely went to waste. Yeah. I dropped down to Olympia and I met with Kelly Susan, the director of the agency. I sat in his office. I had I talked to him for almost two hours, and we talked about a variety of topics, and he's he spoke very openly with me, and he didn't need to take the time to talk with me, and he did. And I asked him a lot of questions. Some of the questions he couldn't answer, the majority of them he could, but one of the questions that I asked him as I left, I said, Hey, I'd like to know how recreational anglers can advocate for change. You know, whether that's, and I don't just want you to tell me, hey, go across the street and talk to the your legislature. Because I want you to give me, like, who do I specifically need to talk to? Who is the department lead or the committee lead that would help you get change with funding? Or what person, what assistant do I need to talk to? Or who do I need to talk to federally at NOAA? Or who do I need, what just give me. I don't just want you to tell me to go talk to your legislature because that's difficult. You can do that. I want you to give me that. I have a platform that gets millions of views a week. Tell me what I can do. I will help you make it easier if you can help me. I left him with that conversation. He said, you know what? I'll do some research and I'll get back to you. We're almost two months since I had that conversation with him, and I have not heard from the guy. Not an email, not a text message, not nothing. And so it's like my four hours of time in a platform that I have that gets millions of views with almost 50,000 followers. Like, I'm I guess my my time was not important enough for you to take maybe 10, 20, 30 minutes out of your day to draft a letter and email or give it. He has assistance, he has like two or three different assistants that work for him that respond to his emails for him. Like you couldn't get on a phone call and like to me, that just showed the level of care that some of the department staff's attitude has towards the people that are gonna help him get the funding or get what he needs. And you just think like, what's the motivation behind it? That bothered me. That that bothered me. I had we he and I talked about my PDRs. I have probably almost 400 public records requests in to the Department of Fish and Wildlife, probably 100 into NOAA, probably a hundred into um Bureau of Indian Affairs, a hundred into the governor's like I have a lot. I'm gonna get as much information I absolutely can. And some of my be some of my info requests are very broad, they cover a lot of topics. And he said, Hey, you know, uh, we might be able to help you with some of your records requests. Maybe you can sit down and talk to some of my staff, and we can maybe get you some of the stuff that you're looking for, and then we don't have to get everything that you're looking for. Like you're just probably looking for one PDF or one argument. Like, I want the Still Aguamish payback accounting, but I've asked for every single email, text message, Zoom call that has anything to do with still Aguamish payback. Like, I'm probably gonna get 250,000 pieces of information when all I want is one document. So he says, Hey, talk to my program director, talk to Kelly Cunningham. So I reach out to Kelly Cunningham, say, hey, let's get together. I'd like to try and piece together some of this stuff. And this is not an attack on Kelly Susan or Kelly Cunningham. This is attack is an attack on the machine. It's an attack on the attitude, it's an attack on the decorum. It's the attack on the way that the Department of Fish and Wildlife's MO, their attitude, their operating procedures are. Because it doesn't just happen with Kelly Susan, it happens with all of them. So I reach out to Kelly Cunningham and say, hey, let's have a conversation. Oh, yeah, I'll get with, I'll see what I can do. I'll get a Zoom. Yeah, let's meet next week. So I remind him the next week. Yep, nope. I'll get with you in two weeks. So I remind him in two weeks. Yep, I'll get with you next week. So then I just wait two or three weeks, wait a month, send another text message about another topic. I don't get a response. It's just like, dude, I'm I'm trying to reach out to help you make your agency run more efficient, to help me get the information. And you can't even take 30 minutes out of your day or your time to have a conversation that your boss told me to have with you. The director of the agency told me to talk with you and help get things easier. And you can't even do that, you can't even respond to me. Like, that's a problem. In in Olympia, in Olympia at NOF1, so the second of the three meetings that we have for North of Falcon, we talk about VTRs. The department talks about VTRs extensively. I asked Jake Rice, the program director, hey man, I mean the fish and salmon steelhead management to say can you please get us some real documentation on VTR so we can get on our platforms and talk about them? He says, Yeah. We had that conversation with him in March. March. We talk about it again in uh Linwood about VTRs. I talked to him about it again in Oregon at PFMC. I send him emails, I send him text messages, I send Haley Rosenstahl emails, I send Christine Iverson emails, and here we are five months later, four months later, and we still don't have it.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:42

Yeah, and what have we done since then? We still progressed that movement. We have still had conversations about uh the importance of VTRs without them providing us any support whatsoever. I've gone on the John Sporting Goods podcast and vouched for the the adamacy for VTRs. We went on to uh various social media platforms. The department put out fine, I talked to Jay uh Chase Gannell, the communications director for Region 4, and said, dude, when are we gonna see some form of social media uh campaign on VTRs? Finally, they put one out. Then there's comments in there that we don't necessarily have all the answers to. I reach out again, please give us some information so that we can answer these questions accurately. We reach out to Jake again. Um help us get some of these answers, or you know, help us get the thing we asked for in March, we still have not received. How how do we how do we do the petitioning for you um when this level of communication is severely one-sided? The the the the thing that I've that gets me the most is that we were provided a message from department staff of that we were not helping, that um you were not helping, that that the messaging and the content about the department of fish and wildlife was in the PDRs, it was it was it was actually uh you know it it wasn't it wasn't helping any anything that they were trying to accomplish. I mean shoot, we even heard from um we even heard from a certain individual who who's the president of maybe the largest sport fishing organization in the state say that you almost uh completely imploded all of our fisheries that you we were not helping. So they came to us and they said, We need you to change something, we need your help that you're not helping. Can you please um redirect your energy towards something that's proactive? Can you can can we get any sort of activism on behalf of the department? And and you know what we did? We said give us something, give us something that we can stand behind, give us something that I'm not gonna blindly advocate, but if you give me something, I'll advocate. Um, so we started talking about VTRs, start talking about how that uh the participants in our recreational fisheries can have a role in us um bettering the scientific analysis of our fisheries, and then we we also start talking with other folks like Region Ford Director Ed E. Laser, and we start hearing some good things, and then what did we do? We we did our best, and you talk about this all branch, we've done our best to start citing these limited positive things that the department has done. Um, we talk about budget. We've i i i've i got another email today from another state representative. Um we're trying to reach out to folks to to advocate for the importance of budgeting for the department. We took their word on what they needed from us, and we we evolved to provide something that maybe could be more advantageous for the department's operation. And what did we get in return? We got silence, so it it really it's like a quid pro quo with no quo. That's what it is. It it was hey, do if you could do this for me, then we'll help you here. Or if if you can do this, uh this will help us, and in turn, we will make sure that you have an avenue to communication uh that not everyone has, or you'll have an avenue to us providing you the things that you're asking for. So we did our part. I've reached out to every single legislature in the 40th and 10th district. I've had meetings with three of them. I had another email today for a meeting for another. What am I doing? I'm advocating for um them to better understand the importance of funding for WDFW. I've gone on to we've gone on to podcasts, uh, whether it's the Anger's Unlimited podcast, whether it's our very own podcast here, whether it was John Sporting's goods, hunt quietly with with with um with Matt Renault, not Matt. Um was the Hunt Quietly podcast. We we have done our part to change that tune a little bit, and what we get in return, nothing. Less communication, less replies, um, months and months and months of of saying yes, we're working on it, yes, we're working on it, and we're gonna get it for you. For nothing. Um, hey, there's a vacancy on the Puget Sound Sport Fishing Advisory Group. I'm doing everything I can to advocate for you guys. All I want is that a Marine Area 7 advocates on that group. Sorry, not nothing we can do at this time, not important enough for us. I think the quote was is that of all the things we have to work on right now, that filling a vacant seat on the advisory group is very low on our priority. So it's a quid pro quote without a quote. So I can completely understand the frustration that you're having, because I'm having it. So at this point, it's kind of like well, when Clyde Representative Clyde Shavers emails me today, says, Hey, I want to meet, and that's in response of an email I wrote two plus weeks ago. Am I supposed to go talk to Representative Shavers and advocate for all the good work that the department's doing? When everything that they've asked of us that we did and and and we just got a big rubber middle finger in return. No, I don't care about Marine Area 7 advocacy. No, um I I don't care about the public understanding stilly payback. No, I don't care about the public having a good understanding of the importance of VTRs. The list just keeps growing, and and at some point, I don't know how high-ranking department staff, Mr. Cunningham, can question or or have any sort of animosity towards what we're doing if he's not willing to at least see that what we've asked of you you have not provided. Because we did what what you asked of us. We lowered the rhetoric, we advocated for the good work that you and your department staff is doing and your re and your regional directors are doing. We've advocated for a program that recreational participants could help bolster the science database. I don't think you're in the wrong right now, Philip, on saying that you're fed up. I don't think you're in the wrong at all.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:00

At some point somebody with a pay grade a lot higher and a and an IQ of a lot higher than you and I both have has got to sit down and look at what the common denominator is behind this continued failure of the Department of Fish and Wildlife in regards to its constituents or the people that that are responsible for funding it. And somebody needs to figure out are the people that are in the positions to make these decisions the right ones? And if are these position are are these people in the right positions? And if they are, what is the situations, the thoughts, or the feelings that are keeping them from doing the right thing? And and if if they aren't the right people, then you gotta make a decision to start over. And change is not easy. You know, replacing any of those upper level management will not be an easy thing. You know, you you've got Kelly Suspin's been in his position for a decade, over a decade, or almost a decade. Cunningham's been in his position for a super long time, six, seven years, I think. He's these people have created relationships with staff, they've created relationships with people at NOAA, they've created relationships with people uh within the tribes in the negotiation process, but it's literally becoming a failure on almost every single directive or platform that you possibly can. And are these people fit enough to get this ship going the direction that it needs to go? They have not been able to do it in the financial climate that we've had for the last decade. Now we're getting ready to go into a terrible financial climate. With the budgets that we're looking at over the next biennium, over the next three, four, five years, are they going to be able to do it? Like now, are they going to be able to do it where the the times are even harder? Somebody needs somebody above us needs to really think about that and think about if you know are these people the right ones to make the decision? There's a lot of stuff that you and I don't see. There's a lot of stuff that those upper level managers do that we don't see. But the stuff that we do see, I don't see anything, I don't see anything remotely close to positive or in the direction that it needs to be for me to feel comfortable to co-sign on them to continue doing it in the foreseeable future.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:48

Something I will say this that there's a lot of there's a lot of talk about the director, um, Kelly Suzewind. There's something I do know about Kelly Suzewind is that he is an advocate for consumptive conservation. He is so when we talk about get rid of the director, you and I've talked about this, you've made comments to me before, and I'm like, Well, I don't know if we want to get rid of the director.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:14

But what's getting better? What's changing? Just because you like to hunt and fish doesn't mean that you have the skills to navigate where we need you to go. You have not been able to navigate them, you haven't been able to navigate it financially because your budget is probably double what it was when you first took when you've taken over the helm and you have a spending problem. Our fisheries are literally a fraction of what they were 10 years ago. We can sit here and talk about impacts. We're managed to impacts, and less than 2% of the Nooksack impacts went to non-treaty fisheries, and 9% went to treaty fisheries last year, uh, this year. We go over here to the Stillaguamish, 5.24% went to treaty fisheries, 3.6 went to non-treaty fisheries. Like we can go, we can go down the list over and over. The Skagit, 19% went to treaty fisheries and less than 2% went to record. Like, that's not you, you're you're not getting it done there either. Like, I'm sorry to keep interrupting you, man, but just because you like to hunt and you like to fish and you're you're a hunter and a fisherman doesn't mean you have the tangibles to get the direction of the department going where it needs to go. I'll get off my soapbox for a second there.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:38

Well, look, I again department high-ranking staff need to have some tough skin. I can't have a conversation with high-ranking department staff and have the bulk of the conversation be about the displeasures of factual stuff being disclosed.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:06

Your skin wouldn't have to be as thick if you were doing the right thing. If you sat down and talked with me about my records request, your s you're thin your skin wouldn't have to be thick. If you would have emailed me back three different ways to advocate for recreational fisheries in the next 12 months, you probably wouldn't have to take this verbal lashing on my platform right now. Yeah, I agree. If you if you could figure out a way to put a fishery on the icicle creek or river while treaty fisheries took place, just open the fishery up, you probably wouldn't have to see three or four of my videos every morning when you woke up.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:48

If you opened up recreational fisheries for sockeye on the Columbia when there's a conservation issue, but tribal gillnet fisheries are going like crazy, and almost 95% of those impacts go to treaty fisheries, like you wouldn't have to take the slash. I mean, the the it goes on and on and on.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:09

Yeah. Well, I mean, and that bolsters that bolsters the point that I've I've made time for years in that um it's not that I was told that that I I am not um appointed to the sport fishing advisory group. It's not that I was told that that I'm not on that group because of my affiliation with with you, whatever the affiliation is, I'm just a guy who has a conversation with you and we record it and we post it. Uh but I'm gonna be consistent on my message that I've been consistent on for years. I I'm not going to um go after our co-managers for the way that these impacts are allocated. I'm not going to attack any treaty fishery and how it's conducted, when it's conducted, uh, the result of it being conducted. No, I'm going to attack the Department of Fish and Wildlife, and I'm going to attack leadership of the Department of Fish and Wildlife for how they're compliant and how they are soft in their method and manner of which they advocate for the recreational fishermen. And it couldn't be more exemplary or more on display when we see the level of passiveness and lack of assertiveness when we ask for communication or when we ask for partnership and we ask for collaboration. Their atimacy and advocacy for recreational fishermen is perfectly on display with the lack of attentiveness that they provide to us as um dedicated and active advocates for for our recreational fisheries. They treat us as if we are a very, very low peg on the pecking order. They treat us as if um that partnership with us is is is such a low priority. And I think that is that is a snapshot into how they treat their advocacy for general recreational fisheries.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:56

That has to change. And I'm gonna be calling for change in the in the department heads until that change, period. And that's fine. If a department's head, if a department staff member that's in a high-ranking official makes me feel like that, they should not work in that position.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:17

Yeah, I hear, I understand that.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:19

I think if there's 600,000 fish at the Minter Creek hatchery that are hatchery fish and they're not clipped because the department doesn't stick up for its recreational constituents and advocate for that to change. I'm gonna ask for everybody that's in charge of that program to change. You need to retire, you need to quit, you need to go to a you know, you need to go to DNR, you need to get fired, you need to get replaced, you need to get doged, you need to go to Creole. Like something has to change until we get somebody in that position that represents the people that fund the department.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:57

Yeah, I totally get that, and I'm 100% going to um I'm gonna 100% stand with you on that. I am also going to ensure that there is an avenue, narrow as it may be at this point, I'm gonna still say that there's an importance for us to continue um the cultivation of communication. Like, I know we're sick of it, I know that, and I and I I think though it is still my duty to make sure that we don't completely shut that door. Frustrating as it may, like I do.

SPEAKER_02 1:58:47

I don't I don't want to shut the door, I don't want to shut the door. I'd like to make the door bigger, but by making the door bigger, you got to replace the door. I want to replace the door. Yeah, that door either needs to start opening up or we need to replace it with a bigger one. Yeah, I mean, just flat outright. We need to replace it with a bigger one. And if you don't want to get replaced, if the door, if you are a door and you don't want to get replaced, then start opening up. This will post, this will post probably Monday. You should call me next week. And if you don't call me and amend if the if the director or the fish program director or the salmon and steelhead manager don't call me between now and the next commission meeting, which I think is July 17th, I believe it is. No, July, yep, 17th. I'm gonna be talking about these same things to the commissioner until we get comp until we get changed. Because guess who can fire you? The commissioners can. The commission and I mean the anti's absolutely hate you guys, they call for Seuss Win's job every single time we go in there.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:54

If you weren't gonna make amends with one user group, it should be it should be us. Yeah, like if you if you want like to keep your job, then it you should be making sure that the coordination that you're conducting is with us. There shouldn't be conversations anymore about how we can't uh tell you this or we can't bring you on to this, or or that there shouldn't be any more conversations about hey sorry, we've we've been busy, hey, sorry, these PDRs have been taking a lot of our time. Um there shouldn't be any more of this. Like the fact that the fact that we were led on to believe that we are bridging a gap to then it's like you we're seeing the bullshit. We're seeing it. I mean, Jake, I love talking to you, Jake. It's great. We get a give little jabs at each other all the time. It's fun. I like it. But do I think like we're really getting somewhere? I'm sorry, Jake, but no, I don't.

SPEAKER_02 2:01:15

I uh I took offense to there being an opening on the Spore Fishing Advisory Group. Somebody passed away, unfortunately. Yeah. Instead of replacing them with another person, especially the temperature that the department has, like they need good recreational fishing advisors that could help advocate for them. You know, so you reach out, you send a good faith email to a variety of people up there and their responses that you know at this time we're not gonna fill it. It's just there's no reason why they couldn't fill it. It was easier for them not to fill it, and they would rather take the pie in the face on all that. It's just it, it just it makes no sense. Like well, it didn't it well the the reason pass backwards over.

SPEAKER_01 2:02:12

Yeah, the reason for not feeling is that they would have to put it up for they'd have to go through the application process again, and I'm just like, Well, dude, didn't you have a full pool? Didn't you have a full pool?

SPEAKER_02 2:02:23

Like, yeah, yeah, you don't follow you, you don't follow any of the rules that you say you're gonna do. I'm gonna have to put an application process. You've got guys on there that don't even show up to the meetings, you've got guys on there that have never even been to North of Falcon, you got guys on there that don't even get on the call, you got guys on there that's have had been in there for 15 years, and everything that you post on your website says that you shouldn't be doing any of that. Do you really think that we think you have to post it on the website? Dude, it's just a cop out. Yeah, let's talk about something positive. Let's talk about the bubble.

SPEAKER_01 2:02:59

I guess I got something positive.

SPEAKER_02 2:03:04

I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna do enough torching this week on social media. Yeah, let's talk about the bubble.

SPEAKER_01 2:03:10

If you've listened this far, like folks, like hey, we're just trying to give you a snapshot into the climate. Uh we're trying to give you a snapshot into uh how our communication has been going and it has gone from this to this. Um but fisheries, uh summer's here, folks, and fisheries have have begun, and and it's been pretty good, if I will say. So some of these estimates that we received, I didn't receive it, I got it secondhand because I'm not on the advisory group, but I did get our fisheries estimates through June 21st. Um, by the time this posts, we will be close to our next uh round of estimates, but um through June to the June 20, yeah, through the June 20th um Toyota bubble bubble opener, we had 306 estimated catch on the bubble. So 306 of 600 fish. So the fishery has picked up. I participated in it. I did uh an evening and a morning trip, and we got a fish each trip. Now uh that Sun or Saturday morning that we went, it was pretty darn slow, but we still found a way to scratch a fish out. Um at the time we're recording this, I do know that uh the curl reports for this Friday, Saturday has been much more promising. Folks, if you have not uh participated in that bubble fishery yet, if you have not found a way to go to go try to if you're on the north end, um just go go give it a shot. Yeah, it's busy, um, but you're we're on a limited time. We're now at least over 51% of total catch on that. So let's see here. That's supposed to go into September. I I would highly encourage you just to go give it a try. It's not a super active fishery. You have a small piece of uh geographical area that you can fish, it's gonna be pretty crowded, but we found luck on about 100 to 100 and we're 90 to 110 feet of water, and we were fishing about 90 feet on the cable. And um we had multiple takedowns, and we we were able to put a couple fish in the boat. Um the June 20th.

SPEAKER_02 2:05:35

Here's here hold on, hold on just for a second. Here let me just tell you something. Here's what's interesting about this. And this is the more this is the more this is the positive. No, I I when you I'm not gonna, you're not gonna. This is we're gonna talk about tough topics, dude. We're gonna talk talk about tough topics. We got a 600 fish quota in the bubble. Yes. We know that the tribe, we know that the Toledo tribe hit Stiligwamish payback last year. Yeah, harvested over 10,000 fish. They've posted their fishery numbers on their website for like 10 years. I've been watching it like a hawk. I've been waiting for you know the Department of Fish and Wildlife numbers to hit 600 and then they closed the fishery down. The tribes hit like 2,500 week before.

SPEAKER_00 2:06:29

Yeah, 2500.

SPEAKER_02 2:06:31

Yeah. Then last week they they showed that they caught four fish. Went to 25. Now this week you go there, guess what? Their numbers are gone. What they've taken their numbers off their website.

SPEAKER_01 2:06:47

You're telling me the website that we've been watching is no longer there? You gotta be kidding me. I'm not. This is this this is the stuff that we deal with. Like uh car detailer. What's his name? Oh gosh. What's his name? The car detail, dude. I'm trying. I am trying so freaking hard. It it's just hey, treaty allocation is not something I'm gonna ever talk about. They uh what are you hiding?

SPEAKER_02 2:07:23

Why have you had that public for 10 years? And then you go to the website, the web page that I've had there, doesn't matter if you do it on your phone, doesn't matter if you Google, the whole part of the website's even there. It even says right on the website to lay up salmon catch by species, area cumulative week. And then that whole part of the page is just deleted, it's gone. It had Koho, it had Schnook, it had chum. What are you hiding? Why do you have it published? You were the only tribe that had it published for did you get pressure from the Northwest Indian Fish Commission? Did you get pressure from the Muckle Shoot tribe? Did you get pressure from the Macab? Like what like like why is it gone? Mr. Gobin. Why is it gone?

SPEAKER_01 2:08:11

Give him a call. I have no call him, call him now.

SPEAKER_03 2:08:20

Keep going.

SPEAKER_01 2:08:23

Why do you think it's gone, Alex? I think they're harvesting a good amount of fish.

SPEAKER_02 2:08:28

I think the fish have crushing it. Look at Rudy's webs. Look at Rudy's pictures.

SPEAKER_01 2:08:37

I can tell you from a first hand, and also from talking from some friends that have fished in this most recent opener, uh, fishing has turned up. Uh don't go there thinking you're you're you know you're you're destined for luck. It is a brutal fishery at times, but it certainly seems like the fishing has picked up. And before we we get shut down on this ridiculous 600 fish fishery, um, go give it a shot. Launch out of Everett, run up there, launch out of Kamano, run down there. Uh, I think the kayak launch is gonna open up here soon before this fishery closes. Go give that a shot. Uh, again, we had luck fishing uh 90 feet on the cable from 90 to 110 feet of water. Uh and I think we'll have a video out on the breakaway flasher system. I really like to run. Um, so that's been that's what's been going on. Um Marine Area 10 Razi Co. It continues, and I think folks are doing well with that fishery. I I I've heard of a lot of different people that I've talked to that were able to get in there and get their fish pretty quickly. Um, I Connor from John's John Sporting Goods, he had to move around a little bit, but they eventually found their fish. He's got a great video out on running down some gear that they used. I'm gonna say this like there are Chinook in the area. Folks, I I know we're excited when we hook a Chinook. If you could please just refrain from posting that picture of that Chinook on Facebook or social media anywhere, you don't need to do that. Like, you can you can make a post about the luck you had on Resi Coho, but it it's it's certainly not productive. And I've heard this from Chase Gannell from the Region 4 communications director to like hey, if we could ease up on posting a sublegal fish or b posting Chinook in closed waters, illegal.

SPEAKER_02 2:10:41

Yeah, yeah, from the guy that knows it's illegal, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:10:52

Estimates through June 21st, 614 total caught. That's 43, 59 on our unmarked quota, and 30 on our sub-legal quota. That went to a two-fish limit on June 18th. Everybody can thank the Gabe Miller on making sure that bag limit that bag limit got increased. He is the only person on the Puget Sound Sport Fishing Advisory Group that put out uh a detailed recommendation to increase that bag limit. Um, that fishery is gonna run through what the end of the month till next week or Tuesday. This posts, maybe you have a day or two to go. But um, if it is closed by the time that this posts, just know that the opportunity for a two fish bag that is attributed to Gabe Miller. Thank you for your work there, Gabe. Um our Puget Sound Crab Fishery is gonna kick off uh Thursday, July 2nd, right before our wonderful 250th anniversary of our great nation. Uh crab fishery is gonna kick off in marine areas eight, nine, ten. Is there a crab and 10?

SPEAKER_02 2:12:02

Um yeah, there's crab and 10.

SPEAKER_01 2:12:04

You're gonna have to speak to some of them South Sound stuff. July, uh area 7's gonna kick off. There's no crab and 13, but the numbers are up. No, yes, we saw test fishing numbers. There are up. Don't hold your breath on that fishery coming back.

SPEAKER_02 2:12:21

Um Marina 7 if we get a director in there that would push for it. Maybe we could get some.

SPEAKER_01 2:12:28

We just can't let it go. Uh ocean fisheries are in full swing. Owako, wait, of course, uh Nea Bay. Let me tell you, it has been on fire. If you get your chance to get out to the ocean, get on a charter boat um or on a boat of your own. It has been very, very good fishing. Halbit will close in the month of July. So if uh so by the time this comes out, pretty much Halbut's gonna be wrapped up, then it will reopen depending on available quota. I can almost guarantee you that Halbit days will come back in August in both Westport and out of Nia Bay.

SPEAKER_02 2:13:05

We're not even at half.

SPEAKER_01 2:13:07

What's that? We're not even at half. Yeah, yeah, the the one through four quota is looking very promising. With that said, Halbut will also close in 5 through 13 um until a date to be determined in August, and then we'll probably see the the Halibut season open back up. Nia Bay continues to be a one Chinook limit, two fish limit. Uh one may be a uh non-selective king until the first of July, I believe it is. And then once July first comes, we will go to a two-king limit out there or two two fish, two of which can be Chinook.

SPEAKER_02 2:13:47

Release your coho. If you're fishing up there, release your coho. Don't keep them, anyways. You'll get the fatties later on. It hurts the Chinook quota. Just release them.

SPEAKER_01 2:13:58

Yeah, I mean, like if you can help yourself, you know, you can keep yourself, yeah. You can help yourself. Give yourself a full day of fishing. Go target those Chinook, keep that Chinook uh keep that coho quota on the table. When coho quota is obtained, Chinook fishing ends. Done. Let's uh let's let's focus on that. Um that kind of breaks it down. There's one more shrimp opener. Uh when's your next you have you they gave you another day on shrimp?

SPEAKER_02 2:14:27

When's the day Tuesday the seventh?

SPEAKER_01 2:14:29

Tuesday July 7th. It's a what one to four or nine to nine to one.

SPEAKER_02 2:14:34

Yeah, it's a nine to one.

SPEAKER_01 2:14:36

Nine to one. Yep, four. Yeah. What I said, I said how lovely. Yeah, four hours. I believe there is one more shrimp opener currently scheduled for marine area seven west. And I want to say that's the 17th and 18th, which is conveniently placed during our Chinook opener. Uh, which I should remind you, Marine Area 7 and 9 is going to kick off on July 16th, 17th, and 18th. Um, marine area 10 and 11 is going to go July 22nd, 23rd, 24th. Am I right on that, Philip? Is it 22nd?

SPEAKER_02 2:15:13

I think it's 23rd, 24th, 25th.

SPEAKER_01 2:15:15

23rd, 24th, 25th. Um man, there's gonna be a lot to get to when we we really dive into this. My brain's kind of fried. We talked a lot today about WDFW Malfeasance, but um, I can promise you that on our next podcast, our next episode, that we will have a full detailed breakdown of our summer Chinook opportunity, what's happening, what's working, um, what to expect, and and and we'll go from there. So, folks, it's a lot of doom and gloom right now on just the overall projection of how our fisheries are going. But this is the best time of year, and so I want to remind folks that we do have an opportunity to get on the water and uh fill your calendars, book your schedules, make sure that you are taking advantage of the opportunities that we're about to get because it is going to be a lot of fun this summer.

SPEAKER_02 2:16:16

So many people fought so freaking hard for these upcoming Chinook days. Like, take advantage of them. Yeah, even though there's not very many of them, like let's take freaking advantage of them. Get out there, weather's gonna be good, sun's gonna be out there. It's time, it's go time.

SPEAKER_01 2:16:34

Yeah, it's go time. We're right around the corner now.

SPEAKER_02 2:16:38

Alex, I had fun.

SPEAKER_01 2:16:40

Fuck, what a grueling one.

SPEAKER_02 2:16:42

Thanks for being a thanks for being a guest on my show.

SPEAKER_01 2:16:46

Not a co-host.

SPEAKER_02 2:16:50

Wouldn't want that to get in the way of you becoming an advisor.

SPEAKER_01 2:16:55

At this point, it's like fuck it. But listen, um, if you're listening to this, 4th of July is next week, and I don't care where anybody stands on any political issue. It's America's birthday, and I couldn't be more happy to celebrate it. I am so stoked on 4th of July. It's my favorite holiday of the year. Um, let's just get out there, be safe, have fun, enjoy some time with some family and friends, cook some hot dogs, light off some fireworks. Happy birthday, America. Happy birthday, America.

SPEAKER_02 2:17:35

Happy good.

SPEAKER_03 2:17:36

All right, you too.