Archive for February, 2012
Washington Health of Department tests have found marine toxin levels within safe limits, so the two-day (Feb. 18-19) noon to midnight razor clam dig on three coastal beaches is a go.
Long Beach, Twin Harbors and Mocrocks beaches will be open, while Copalis Beach and Kalaloch Beach remain closed.
PM low tides are at 4:20 p.m. and 5 p.m. for those days, respectively. Practically speaking, digging can start one to two hours before the low slack.
Following this dig after harvest estimates have been tallied, spring morning tide digs will be scheduled.
Last year’s (2011-12) annual licenses are still good.
State/tribal predictions for 2012 hatchery and wild salmon returns to Washington’s coastal and inland waters will be announced Tuesday, Feb. 28 at an all-day public gathering in the General Adminstration Building Auditorium on the Capitol Campus in Olympia. The meeting convenes at 9 a.m.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s annual salmon forecast session is the curtain-raiser for the North of Falcon process that leads to the setting of sport salmon fishing seasons in nearshore marine waters and rivers of Western Washington.
Anyone with an interest in public recreational fishing and wild salmon conservation is encouraged to start their participation in the process by attending the briefing and work sessions Feb. 28. Discussions will center on salmon management issues.
Additional meetings are scheduled throughout March, together with two formal North of Falcon planning sessions held with federal representatives and treaty tribal negotiators.
Washington state and tribal conferees will settle North of Falcon salmon allocations during this process while concurrent deliberations are carried out by the Pacific Fisheries Management Council that will establish salmon angling opportunities in Lower Forty-Eight off-shore waters under U.S. federal jurisdiction (3-200 miles).
The 2012 seasons will be adopted April 6 at the PFMC meeting in Seattle.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has designated the Olympic Peninsula’s Sol Duc River a wild steelhead sanctuary and has ended a 25-year cooperative hatchery steelhead rearing program there.
Supported by the Olympic Peninsula Guides’ Association, the Snider Creek project, annually produced both winter and summer run steelhead smolts for release into the Sol Duc, which is a major feeder stream to the Quillayute River.
Department officials and the coop group are exploring ideas for moving production releases to the neighboring Bogachiel and Calawah rivers, also tributaries of the Quillayute.
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