As of June 18th, Washington’s sport halibut anglers have only caught approximately 50% of their quota. Sport halibut fishing will be closed July 1st, leaving thousands of pounds of quota on the books. In Marine Area 5 & 6 July 1st marks the opening of Chinook salmon season.

A reasonable person would conclude that some Marine Areas should remain open for halibut concurrently with salmon. This just makes sense. There’s salmon and halibut to be caught, numbers prove that. Opportunities for sports anglers should be a priority. However, fisheries managers at Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) say no to a July halibut sport fishery!

Why?

They claim it is too hard for WDFW fish counters, the employees who check your catch at the docks, marinas and boat launches to count more than one species. Fish counters don’t check all boats/anglers. In places like Mason’s in Sekiu they routinely check a pre-determined formula. For instance, they might check every second or third boat. Fish checkers ask a series of questions, measure fish, take scale samples and they remove coded wire tags implanted in a part of the salmon’s head. All of this info is quickly added to an electronic tablet that updates to the WDFW system.

Counting halibut concurrently with salmon could not be that hard. Or am I missing something? While discussing this with a sports angler at Swain’s on Saturday, he said any third grader is capable of counting more than one species of fish. WDFW has a habit of being incredibly stubborn. Prior to the Halibut Catch Record Card, fisheries managers at WDFW told me the catch card would not affect the season at all. Of course, we have seen the results of the catch card, longer seasons and more accurate numbers instead of overly inflated made up numbers by fisheries managers.

Hopefully WDFW will re-open halibut fishing sometime in August, likely after Chinook season closes. If it does open in August, which it likely will, WDFW checkers will suddenly be capable of counting halibut as well as coho and pink salmon. For some reason counting Chinook salmon requires a degree of skill and training we simple-minded sports anglers can’t comprehend.