WSCFFI PRESS RELEASE
Edited by Steve Jones
The Washington State Council of Fly Fishers International supports the WDFW Quicksilver plan to sustain winter and summer steelhead in Puget Sound waters. We also support a sport fishery for hatchery fish in locations such as the Snohomish, Dungeness and Quilcene rivers that can sustain hatchery fishery without threatening a wild population.
We support the components of the Quicksilver plan that preserve catch and release fishing for all wild winter and summer steelhead. The best habitat for steelhead reproduction is a wild free flowing river. Washington State Council FFI supports the wild steelhead management initive begun in 2018 on the Skagit River. We do not support the introduction of a wild brood-stock program in the Skagit. That wild management strategy should be sustained, and recreational fishing rules should be written t maintain the integrity of the wild management strategy.
Single, barbless-hook, catch and release fishing should be the standard for all rivers where wild management is a priority.
Washington State Council FFI supports the expansion of wild steelhead management to additional Puget Sound rivers including the Samish, Elwha, Nisqually, Nooksack and Skokomish rivers.
Washington State Council’s Board of Directors members created a Study Committee: Robert Gerlach, Jim Maus, Mike Clancy, Sam Matalone and Steve Jones.
FFI Press Release
Tom Logan, Chairman, FFI Conservation announced that the FFI along with our conservation partners, TU and others, are going to endorse congressman Mike Simpson’s proposal to remove the four dams on the Snake River. It has been stated, if the dams are removed, we don’t know if the salmon and steelhead fishery will recover, but, if the dams are not removed, the fishery will definitely go away. We have now joined our partners in asking the NW Congressional Delegation to endorse the proposal and why.