Northwest Wild Country Radio Station

Here's a depressing little piece of nostalgia that turned up recently in the sock drawer of "Wild Country" co-host Bill Herzog: the 1973 Washington Sportfishing Rules pamphlet.

Oh, the pamphlet itself is an innocuous li'l glimpse of a simpler time - 3 ½ x 8 ½, 33 pages, hand-drawn sketch of a rainbow trout on the back cover - but once you start reading the rules & regulations that goverened our rivers and streams 35 years ago, you'll feel like you're an 85-year-old looking at your high school yearbook.

So many friends … gone forever.

By unofficial count, there are 44 rivers and streams in Washington with nearly unrestricted access to wild steelhead in 1973 that are now either CLOSED, or their RUNS ARE EXTINCT. F-O-R-T-Y F-O-U-R!

Sound the bagpipes for steelhead in the Elwha, Cispus and Skokomish. Mourn the disappearance of seasons on the Black, Duckabuch and Dungeness. Remember wistfully the lost opportunities on the Nisqually, Suiattle and Hamma Hamma. Here's a list of fisheries that were open to Evergreen State anglers in 1973 which are currently dead or restricted:

Big Beef Creek	Big River	Black River	Burley Creek
Canyon Creek	Capital Lake	Cedar River	Cispus River
Counter Creek	Curley Creek	Deschutes River	Dewatto River
Dowewalips River	Duckabush River	Dunegness River	Elwha River
Entiat River	Hamma Hamma	E. Fork Humptulips R.	Jim Creek
Kennedy Creek	Lake Union Ship Canal	Little Quilcene River	Mill Creek
Nisqually River	Nooksack River	Quilcene River	Salt Creek
Tornow Branch	Sauk River	Sherwod Creek	Skagit River
Skokomish River	Skookum River	Skykomish River C&R	Snow Creek
S. Prairie Creek	Suiattle River	Tahuya River	Toutle River
Vance Creek	Lake Washington	White River	Yakima River

Don't know what you got 'til it's gooooooneee ….

-JS

WILD BLOG: Eat your heart out

Dec 07 , 2007

That's 27 pounds of steelhead from the Babine River.

That's Wild Country co-host Bill Herzog.

That's a photo I didn't take, because I wasn't there.

That's all I have to say about that.

--J.S.

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