The “Welts Property” segment of the Skagit Wildlife Area, popular the past few years with local waterfowl hunters, has more than doubled in size with the acquisition of 230 additional acres by the state Fish and Wildlife Department. Skagit WA manager John Garrett said the agency has purchased about 80 acres north of the existing segment and 150 acres to the east, for a total current size of 414 acres, and has renamed it the “Samish Unit.” The area fronts on Samish Bay and has been one of the more productive hunting units in the WA so far this season, Garrett said.
Because federal hatchery personnel on the Hoh River had problems a year and a half ago clipping their winter steelhead smolts, only about 45 percent of the catchable hatchery fish returning to the river and its South Fork this winter will have a clipped adipose fin. So the state, trying to maximize recreational and tribal harvest of hatchery fish, will allow either an adipose clip or a dorsal fin measuring 2 inches or less in height (remember that one?) when fully extended, in the two-steelhead daily winter limit. The dorsal fin measurement is based on the fact that a lot of hatchery steelhead have stunted and/or deformed dorsal fins.
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