Washington State Fish and Wildlife officer Scott Schroeder, left, checks to see if anglers at fishing at Barrier Dam have their proper licenses and endorsements on Friday morning in Salkum.
Anglers test the waters of the Cowlitz River at Barrier Dam in Salkum on Friday morning.
Anglers test the waters of the Cowlitz River at Barrier Dam in Salkum on Friday morning.
Anglers test the waters of the Cowlitz River at Barrier Dam in Salkum on Friday morning.
Washington State Fish and Wildlife officer Scott Schroeder, left-center, checks to see if anglers at fishing at Barrier Dam have their proper licenses and endorsements on Friday morning in Salkum.
Standing back from the shoreline, Washington State Fish and Wildlife officer Scott Schroeder watches as anglers test the waters of the Cowlitz River at Barrier Dam in Salkum on Friday morning. Schroeder explained that he likes to watch the anglers for a while from afar to find any suspicious individuals before he goes down to the shore to count fish that had been caught and to check fishing licenses and endorsements.
Washington State Fish and Wildlife officer Scott Schroeder, center, checks to see if anglers at fishing at Barrier Dam have their proper licenses and endorsements on Friday morning in Salkum.
Washington State Fish and Wildlife officer Scott Schroeder, left, checks to see if anglers at fishing at Barrier Dam have their proper licenses and endorsements on Friday morning in Salkum.
Washington State Fish and Wildlife officer Scott Schroeder, left, counts an anglers catch on Friday morning in Salkum. There is a two adult salmon limit on the Cowlitz River.
Washington State Fish and Wildlife officer Scott Schroeder, center, checks to see if anglers at fishing at Barrier Dam have their proper licenses and endorsements on Friday morning in Salkum.
An angler shows Washington State Fish and Wildlife officer Scott Schroeder, left, his fishing license on Friday morning in Salkum.
A line of anglers celebrate after a fish was caught on Friday morning at Barrier Dam on the Cowlitz River in Salkum.
With the salmon and steelhead returning and the fishing season in full swing, anglers from all over the state descend on Southwest Washington.
Those big crowds mean a lot of work for wildlife law enforcement officials.
According to Mark LaRiviere, Tacoma Power's senior fisheries biologist, about 5,500 chinook have moved up the Cowlitz as of Monday morning.
“We’re having a record spring chinook season,” he said.
It’s no secret that the Cowlitz River can be a great spot to catch fish. During a strong salmon or steelhead run, fishermen practically stand elbow-to-elbow.
The latest Creel Survey from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife shows the season is going well. So far, 2,655 spring chinook have come out of the Cowlitz this year, compared with 213 at the same time last year.
“Guys don’t wait for the weekend,” Capt. Murray Schlenker, of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Law Enforcement Program, said. “I could station an officer on the Cowlitz at Blue Creek or Barrier Dam 24 hours a day because of all the traffic.”
Schlenker references a theory in law enforcement that eight in 10 people will commit a crime if they believe they’ll get away with it. The other two are the hardcore criminal type and the type of person who would never break the law.
Schlenker believes the theory, and he said it’s evidenced from the speeders on the freeway to the people who use barbed hooks when they’re not supposed to.
“People don’t think of themselves as violators, they think of ways to rationalize it,” he said. Then when they are caught they’ll try to talk their way out of it. “People often have some sort of story. It can be entertaining,” he said. They’ll deny, deny, deny, even though you’ve got them on videotape. Then they’ll deny they’re in it.”
That’s just about what happened a couple weeks ago. From his boat, a fisherman recorded another fisherman net dipping fish where he wasn’t supposed to before running off. The man showed the video to Officer Scott Schroeder, who later approached the man in the video. Not only did the netter, a Puyallup resident, catch fish in closed waters but he had gone over the catch limit. A friend of his had also caught two steelhead without a license.
WDFW posted the video to its Facebook page and, so far, it’s been viewed 11,700 times.
“The guy fit that profile,” Schlenker said. “He came out from a city quite a ways off and wants to make the most out of the one or two days he’ll be here. The guy thought he could get away with it.”
Schroeder said it’s not unheard of to write up to 20 tickets a week just at the Barrier Dam or Blue Creek. That shouldn’t be surprising, he said, considering the volume of people that come to the river. As of 7 a.m. Monday morning he counted 65 people fishing one hole.
Gear violations are common issues he comes across, followed by anglers fishing in closed waters and people not having the proper licenses.
The biggest issue of all he sees on the Cowlitz is people taking more fish than they’re allowed, but it’s usually not more than one or two more fish.
“For the most part people are good-natured and good fishermen … people kind of police each other,” he said.
Still, game officials keep them honest by checking on anglers on varied schedules and routines. That might mean inspecting hooks at first light or hiding out at noon and watching from a distance.
Schroeder said he too is a fisherman, but prefers the relative quiet of trout fishing with his family over the combat fishing for salmon and steelhead and the sense of responsibility it brings.
“I don’t like to recreate where I work,” he said. “If I’m on my day off, I don’t want to have that feeling that I have to go to work if I saw something. When I’m off, I’d feel I’d have to deal with it.”
