08-04-2007, 07:08 PM
There is no current commercial squid fishery in Puget Sound. In years past people have tried, I believe in 1985, and 1955 there was a seiner or two that landed 50,000 pounds once or twice. I tried it a little in the past few years on a lower budget small boat operation. I don't believe the numbers are there to support a large boat seine fishery, but a small boat low volume high value catch fishery is certainly possible. Washington is very hard, because the fisheries department is stretched so thin, they woukd rather not see new resources develop, thoug hthrough my experience a viable fishery could be established. I am not a politician, I just want to fish. The state fisheries department severely mis-manages everything anyways. I believe the squid in Puget sound play a role in the local ecosystem, and are largely ignored by the scientific community. Two years ago I took part in the first tagging attempt on the local Loligos, with two prominent biologists.