For all of you interested in bottom fishing or attracting more visitors to South County,
we need your support in providing the Washington State Department of Fish and
Wildlife (WDFW) with input at this upcoming meeting or written comments.
Our Brinnon Parks and Recreation District, which we created via a vote of the residents
in 2013, created a petition to support reopening North Hood Canal to Bottom fishing
after being closed for over a decade. Last year we secured over 1000 signatures during
a three month period between July and September. We will be submitting those petitions
to the WDFW at the meeting on March 19th in Port Townsend along with a written
statement of support to reopen all of North Hood Canal to bottom fishing rather than
just Flatfish in Quilcene and Dabob Bay.
A little background concerning why WDFW is seeking public comment on this proposal might
be of interest. As a result of us providing WDFW with a single unsigned copy of that petition
in August of last year, just to determine how we should proceed in submitting all our signed
petitions, the WDFW Commission directed their staff to initiate rulemaking and to consider
only allowing bottom fishing for selected species in just Quilcene and Dabob Bay. We believe
that this proposal to just open Bottom Fishing in Quilcene and Dabob bays to only Flatfish
would be a waste of WDFW resources. We also believe that WDFW should be directing their
limited resources to evaluating the possibility of reopening all of North Hood Canal to
Bottom Fishing to other varieties of species and not just flatfish in Quilcene and Dabob bays.
We need your additional support in attending this meeting and making public comment or
submitting written comment to Craig Burley at craig.burley@dfw.wa.gov.
Thank you in advance for your support.
George Sickel
Brinnon
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