NEAH BAY — There aren’t likely to be surprises in the Makah tribe’s 2005-06 winter salmon catch — unlike last season.
After taking nearly about 19,500 chinook salmon — many more than the 1,600 state Department of Fish and Wildlife officials expected the Makah to take last season — the tribe’s fishery this fall will be held to a quota.
And the fishery duration has been shortened by three months.
To Ben Johnson Jr., Makah chairman, those are limits that tribal fisherman can work with.
“Oh yeah, that’ll work for us,” Johnson said Monday.
But Johnson also expressed disappointment with how some nontribal sport fisherman have reacted to last Thursday’s comprehensive fishing regulation package for Puget Sound that grants the tribe a quota of 9,000 chinook for the winter fishing season.
Many sport anglers expressed frustration and anger that the Makah quota has been set much higher than what was estimated by Fish and Wildlife for tribe the year ago — 1,600 chinook.
Some angry e-mail
Johnson shared some of the e-mail messages received by the tribal council since the Fish and Wildlife package was announced.
“Never ever will I spend a meesley [sic] dime on your reservation,” said one e-mailer to the Makah tribe on Friday.
“Go get drunk or OD or [something]. F— you.”
Others accused the tribe of being greedy.
“You are not good stewards and Indians,” said an e-mail message, also sent on Friday.
“You are wasteful and you [sic] parents are turning over in their graves.”
Johnson defended the tribe by saying many people don’t have the facts straight about the impacts on salmon from the Makah fishery.
And he defended the right of the tribe to catch chinook and other fish, saying it represents the basis of the Makah economy.
“Fishing is our livelihood,” Johnson said.
“This is what we’ve been doing all our lives. This is our whole source of income.”
Fish and Wildlife agree
Fish and Wildlife officials agree that the Makah take of almost 20,000 chinook salmon in the tribe’s treaty troll fishery — which it voluntarily ended in February, two months early — hasn’t had any measurable impact.
“For Puget Sound chinook, we didn’t measure an effect on this year’s harvest,” said Pat Patillo of Fish and Wildlife.