Thanks Guys!

This happened while I was out of town, hence no posts in the last week. Thank your local poacher (including plenty of flyfishermen) for this one. Don't fish an 8 weight in water where steelhead fishing is closed.

You can also thank WDFW for not doing their job. It's much easier to just close it down than enforce the regulations, write some tickets and confiscate some gear. Poaching would all but stop if WDFW enforced their own regulations once in a while. Oh wait, they can't do that without a budget, I forgot... Hopefully they'll open it back up in October.-BW


NEWS RELEASE WASHINGTON DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND WILDLIFE

September 17, 2008

Contact: Contact: Bob Leland, (360) 902-2817

Methow River to close Sept. 18 to all fishing

OLYMPIA – The Methow River will close to fishing Thursday (Sept. 18), the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) announced today.
The early closure of the catch-and-release fishery, which was originally scheduled to run through Sept. 30, is necessary to avoid additional incidental catch of protected wild steelhead, said Bob Leland, WDFW steelhead program manager.
The fishery, which is directed at resident trout, is allowed under a federal permit that prescribes strict limits on the incidental catch of wild steelhead, listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA).
“Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen a rise in the number of steelhead in the river, as well as a significant increase in anglers participating in the fishery,” Leland said. “With that combination, we quickly reached the catch-and-release fishery’s ESA limit for incidentally caught wild steelhead, necessitating the closure.”
Leland said fishery managers are assessing the steelhead return to the region and, based upon wild and hatchery returns, could open a fishery in the next few weeks for hatchery steelhead on portions of the upper Columbia River and some tributaries, including the Methow River. That hatchery steelhead fishery would be allowed under a separate federal permit. Anglers should check for updates on fishing seasons on WDFW's website.