Wednesday, April 9, 2014

2014 Update

2014 Program update and meeting schedule. The fish have been moved into the pond and are thriving, thanks to the volunteer feeders and the expertise of Walter, Ray and crew. The same can be said for the Coho currently residing in the net pen at the Edmonds Fishing Pier.
We will have a revised schedule for our General Meetings this year with the next one being on Wednesday April 23rd at the Edmonds Senior Center. Our speaker will be Ron Gardner, who has given us this information about his expertise and experience:
My name is Ron Garner and I've always loved to fish. The waters in Washington have more opportunity than hardly anyone realizes. In our beautiful state, I have landed many, many kings from 30-50 pound kings, High teen to 20+ pound Coho, Lingcod to 50 pounds, and several mid hundred pound halibut. Most think you have to go to Alaska or BC to catch this quality of fish. Not so.
After years of fishing and watching our fisheries shorten, I rolled up my sleeves. I got involved with WDFW in the studies of our fish and shellfish to understand how they all interact as well as how many we can take effectively without harming the resource. I worked with many WDFW staff in decision making. Today most of those staff are running the agency. What I have found is that there is never a real clear one size fits all answer for our fisheries. That includes managing the same fisheries year after year.
My love for the sport and wanting to see our fisheries come back to historical levels is my driver. Future generations need to have what we have.
But to excel you need to learn that each type of fish is different and lives different. This is where the challenge comes in. After studying their habits and what they eat you can start to piece together a game plan on how to manage them and most of all, Catch Them!
Not many know that 5 of us met in Port Angeles in 2003 and hammered out the strait halibut fishery proposal that we enjoy today. We had it moved it forward from June to April when the fish are in. Understanding these fish come in and leave at certain times of the year, helps to understand how to catch them. This has been the driver of having great results.
I am a structure studying nut. I have thousands of hours of studying marine charts. I paid attention to what we were catching on what type of structure and its layout.  In the beginning fishing the ocean, I paid attention of where our hot spots were, their shape, depth, forage, kelp, and what the bottom is made of. In finding certain fish you can figure out where halibut, lingcod, rockfish, cabezon, and even shrimp and crab are.  From this I have discovered many halibut fishing holes that no one knows about in the ocean and even inside. There are techniques that will put you on more fish that I will be showing you. You will go away with a better understanding of where to find halibut and why. 

In addition to Ron's talk, we will also have a raffle. 
As for the schedule for the balance of the year, we will have general meeting on 6/25, 9/24 & 11/19. We will also be holding our Open House in conjunction with the Edmonds Waterfront Festival 5/30 & 6/1 and we hope to see a lot of your attend and or volunteer to help out. We will hold our summer BBQ and auction at the Hatchery on Wednesday August 6th.