WDFW ends IFPAG

[Don Wittenberger]

WDFW has decided to end its Inland Fisheries Policy Advisory Group (IFPAG), which consisted of about 15 individuals appointed by the Director to provide mid-level fisheries managers with citizen input on freshwater recreational fisheries, which covers both trout and warmwater species like bass, walleyes, panfish, catfish, and tiger muskies.

The IFPAG members included fishing club representatives, resort owners, outdoor writers, etc. During my time on IFPAG, I represented the tiger musky clubs and anglers. IFPAG was created in 1995, so it existed for 22 years, and I served on it for 11 years.

In broad terms, WDFW is moving toward a somewhat different model for soliciting public input on its management of recreational fisheries. It will replace most of the existing standing committees like IFPAG by temporary committees set up to deal with specific issues as they arise. As there will no longer be a permanent forum for input on warmwater fisheries, I intend to stay in touch with WDFW's warmwater staff on an informal basis on matters of interest to tiger musky anglers.

WDFW considers its tiger musky stocking program a success, and the continuation of this fishery seems secure for the foreseeable future. WDFW believes stocking tiger muskies is cost-effective, i.e., the revenue it produces from license sales exceeds program costs, which matters because of the effect that financial and budget considerations have on agency decision-making. (This is inevitable any time you are dealing with public managers who must account for how they spend the public's money.) Other warmwater stocking efforts have been less successful and the tiger musky program is now WDFW's only major stocking of a warmwater species.

I don't foresee any significant changes in the fishing regulations affecting tiger muskies. Although significant things are happening with WDFW's fishing regulations, the rules governing our particular fishery have been in place for a number of years now and are very stable. In the bigger picture, Washington has the most complex fishing regulations and lengthiest rules pamphlet of any state, and WDFW wants to simplify its regulations. This complexity is largely a result of past efforts to manage our state's freshwater fisheries on a lake-by-lake and stream-by-stream basis, and WDFW is now trending away from that philosophy and toward more uniform statewide rules, although I don't expect special regulations to completely go away.

WDFW has resumed stocking tiger muskies in Tapps Lake, but trying to expand our tiger musky fishery to additional lakes has proved to be nearly impossible. I've had many discussions with the warmwater staff about this, and over the last 10 years, half a dozen or more potential new lakes were considered by the warmwater managers, but various objections shot them all down. The key factors here are (1) this decision is delegated down the management chain to local biologists, (2) tiger muskies are viewed as incompatible with waters hosting migratory fish (salmon and steelhead), and (3) tribal concerns must be considered. This rules out many western Washington lakes and the entire Columbia River system. Also, expanding tiger musky angling opportunities doesn't seem to be a real high priority; bureaucratic inertia also is a factor, and WDFW staff seem satisfied with the status quo of this fishery. So, in recent years, my focus has shifted to protecting what we've got. There, I think the outlook is good, because the warmwater staff are strongly committed to this fishery and it also has protected funding because of how license fees were structured by the legislative some years ago. (Basically, a portion of your freshwater fishing license fee goes into a separate warmwater fund, and that money can't legally be used for anything else.)

After Friday's meeting, I went to Banks Lake and spent a few days fishing there with a former co-worker who lives in the Ellensburg area. We didn't catch any walleyes, but other anglers are getting them and we didn't try very hard for them; we caught plenty of smallmouth, with crankbaits along the highway riprap producing our best results.

I'm now 71 and it's not as easy to camp and fish as it used to be, but 2017 won't be the year I quit fishing; I intend to fish Mayfield and Merwin for tiger muskies this summer and fall. I ended this Banks Lake trip a couple days earlier than planned because I was pretty uncomfortable from shoulder and back problems, started bleeding again from recent surgery, and there were some boat and vehicle glitches typical of what you have to deal with after the winter layup. On our last day, we had to be towed in from the Barker Canyon area by a sheriff's boat because my outboard motor wouldn't start, which turned out to be a blown fuse in the motor. Two of the three depthfinders didn't work, one of the trailer tie-down's ratchet mechanism jammed, and the new battery in my truck apparently is defective and won't hold a charge, so we had to keep a battery charger on it in the campground. I can fix these things, but I don't know of a cure for the aches and pains of old age.

I might also mention that my friend made the mistake of trying to free his lure from a shoreline bush by jerking it loose and the lure flew back and hit his arm. The hook was buried all the way up to the bend, and I used a pliers to pull it out. It came out on the second attempt. The patient was more sanguine about this procedure than I had any right to expect. At least it wasn't a musky lure, and didn't nail him in the head. I've never had a serious accident in my boat, but when you're casting musky lures with other people in the boat, you've gotta think about what you're doing. When musky fishing, we are throwing big lures with large hooks, and they could do a lot of damage to a boat companion if we get careless. This is most likely to happen toward the end of a fishing day when we are tired and not as mentally sharp.

There apparently are two schools of thought about removing hooks from fish and people. I was taught in Boy Scout first aid training to push the barb the rest of the way through and cut it off, but I've never done it this way in real life; I've always pulled it out, and I believe this is currently the favored method. When unhooking fish, the barb normally is exposed, and I sometimes cut the hooks on my musky lures to free a fish. I carry a small bolt cutters in my tacklebox for this purpose, along with a split ring pliers and a supply of replacement split rings and treble hooks in various sizes to replace the cut hooks and continue fishing with that lure.