There is a line being drawn on the Chehalis River.
But I don’t believe that line should be drawn between the Chehalis Tribe and recreational fishermen.
The current dispute over recreational fishing access to roughly 10 miles of the Chehalis River (from South Bank Road near Oakville upstream to Moon Road Southwest near Helsing Junction) is understandably being framed as a conflict between tribal sovereignty and recreational fishing.
I believe that misses the bigger issue.
This is a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife problem; one that the Washington governor’s office sure hasn’t helped with.
And it didn’t just start now.
When state lands were conveyed to the Chehalis Tribe in 2016, the legal description for the property specifically excluded the beds and shores of navigable water up to the ordinary high-water mark. State records make that exclusion explicit.
According to reporting, and a recap provided by Northwest Sportsman Magazine on the transaction, questions were raised at the time about whether recreational fishing access could be affected. WDFW and a state legislator sought additional time to resolve those concerns.
If those concerns existed nearly a decade ago, why are anglers dealing with the consequences today?
The Chehalis Tribe has sovereignty and a deep cultural connection to the river and its salmon. Its legally established fishing rights should be respected. I do not believe recreational anglers should seek to diminish those rights, nor should this become another opportunity to pit Washington’s tribal communities against its recreational fishing community.
Do I, and many other recreational fishermen, wish wellness and prosperity for our tribal partners? Yes. Without question.
I certainly respected some of the messaging and sentiment provided in the Oct 3 statement on Facebook by former Chehalis Tribal Chairman Dustin Klatush. Do I wholly believe that a comment by the Assistant Attorney General allegedly threatening to “arrest our officers and fishermen, then asked if we wanted things to go back to the way they were in the old days” was true, accurate or not taken out of context?
I don’t know. I wasn’t there. But I wouldn’t appreciate it either if that was said to me.
However, respecting tribal sovereignty and committing to our community’s coexistence cannot mean that the state abandons its responsibility to the people it licenses, regulates and represents.
Coexistence and comanagement doesn’t mean avoiding difficult conversations.
There is nothing inherently wrong with the State of Washington acknowledging that two legitimate interests have collided and saying, “We need to resolve this.”
Because the alternative is a slow-motion quagmire: tribal law enforcement confronting state-licensed anglers, anglers wondering which government has authority over them, guides questioning whether they can safely operate, and WDFW essentially telling its own constituents to stay away from a fishery it has authorized.
WDFW says it disputes the Chehalis Tribe’s legal position regarding exclusive fishing authority over the disputed portion of the federally navigable river.
Yet, the department is warning anglers to avoid the area or pass through without anchoring, wading or fishing because tribal law enforcement may cite them or seize fishing gear or watercraft. The Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation have also issued their own statement on the matter.
The state has authorized the fishery, licensed the fishermen and established the regulations. Yet, when a dispute over jurisdiction arises, the practical solution appears to be telling those fishermen to stay away.
This isn’t about fishing wherever someone wants. It isn’t about ignoring private property. And it isn’t about challenging tribal sovereignty.
It is about whether Washington can establish a lawful recreational fishery and then provide meaningful access to it. If it cannot, what exactly are Washington sportsmen and women being asked to purchase when they buy a fishing license?
We’ve seen the warning signs before.
The Chehalis River dispute should not be viewed in isolation. Look at the Skokomish River.
The Skokomish and Chehalis disputes are not identical legal questions. But the history of the Skokomish provides an important warning about what happens when questions of jurisdiction, access and state authority remain unresolved.
A 2016 Department of the Interior Solicitor’s opinion concerning the southern boundary of the Skokomish Reservation had significant implications for recreational fishing access.
WDFW recognized the problem.
In 2019, WDFW Director Kelly Susewind wrote to the Department of the Interior arguing that the federal opinion had been issued without input from Washington state and that the state’s subsequent analysis showed it to be factually and legally deficient. He requested that the opinion be reversed or, at minimum, withdrawn.
That’s not an agency that didn’t understand the problem. They certainly understood it. They studied it. And they disagreed with it.
Yet, years later, recreational fishing advocates were again asking WDFW to push the federal government to revisit the issue. And WDFW leadership still has not made that request.
The Skokomish issue isn’t proof that the Chehalis dispute will follow the same legal path.
It is something more important. It is a warning about what happens when recognition doesn’t become resolution. Recognition without resolution becomes precedent.
That is my concern with the Chehalis.
WDFW knows there is a dispute. It says it disputes the tribe’s legal position. It recognizes the river’s federal navigability. It knows recreational anglers have a state-authorized fishery. Yet, the practical solution from WDFW appears to simply tell those anglers to avoid the disputed section.
I do understand why WDFW wants to prevent a confrontation on the river. I think we all do. Confrontation is not the solution either.
But there is a difference between deescalating a confrontation today and accepting the circumstances that make that confrontation inevitable tomorrow.
Avoiding the problem is not solving it.
Once the state tells its own license holders to avoid a fishery, the seemingly result is the loss of opportunity — even if the underlying legal question remains unresolved.
That is how precedent can be created without a court ever ruling on the issue. And that should concern every Washington angler.
So what is WDFW’s responsibility?
This is the question Washington needs to ask honestly.
If the department establishes a recreational fishery but cannot ensure reasonable access to it, what does “opportunity” mean? If WDFW believes a federal legal interpretation is wrong, how long should anglers wait before the agency seeks another opinion? And if WDFW believes the tribe’s legal position is incorrect, how long can the state advise its own license holders to stay away?
These aren’t anti-tribal questions. They are questions about state governance.
If WDFW and its Fish Program are unable to advocate for their stakeholders and the fisheries thereof, then what are they doing?
That is a question every Washington angler should be willing to ask.
This is bigger than WDFW.
At some point, this becomes a question for the governor’s Office as well. WDFW does not operate in a vacuum. It is a state agency operating alongside the Attorney General’s Office, Department of Natural Resources and other state institutions.
When tribal sovereignty, federal law, navigability and state-managed fisheries collide, these are too consequential to leave unresolved indefinitely.
There needs to be a coordinated state position. There needs to be legal clarity.
The disconnect between agency responsibility and executive leadership cannot become the recreational angler’s problem. If WDFW believes its stakeholders are being denied access to a state-managed fishery based on a disputed legal interpretation, then it should have the support and direction necessary to pursue a resolution.
Not someday. Now.
There needs to be leadership willing to engage when an agency cannot resolve the issue alone. And I can tell you, following recent discussions with Gov Ferguson’s policy advisers, Gov. Bob Ferguson’s office isn’t sounding too eager to get involved or engage.
Comanagement cannot mean managed retreat.
Washington has spent decades building a model of state-tribal comanagement based on cooperation, agreements, communication and mutual respect.
That model is worth protecting!
The Chehalis, like the Skokomish, should not become another casualty of unresolved jurisdictional questions that ultimately leave fishermen caught in the middle.
What happened to the idea that difficult questions are supposed to be resolved between governments before they become confrontations between law enforcement and citizens?
Respecting tribal sovereignty and protecting recreational opportunity are not mutually exclusive.
There has to be a point where WDFW says: We respect your sovereignty. We respect your rights. We want to work with you. But we also have a responsibility to the citizens we license and the fisheries we manage.
That isn’t overreach. That’s governance.
And maybe that is the real lesson of the Skokomish.
WDFW recognized the problem. The problem was not a lack of awareness. The problem was what happened afterward. Recognition without resolution left recreational opportunity diminished still to this day. And now, we appear to be watching the early stages of another dispute on another Washington river.
I want comanagement. I believe in it.
I want governments talking before fishermen are standing between them. I want clear rules before a citizen launches a boat. I want a state agency willing to advocate for the fisheries it manages and the people it serves.
And I want tribal fishing rights to be respected, without allowing uncertainty or trepidation, to become the mechanism by which WDFW allows recreational opportunity to disappear.
This should never have become Tribes versus Fishermen. It should have been governments working together to solve a problem before an angler ever had to wonder whether casting a line could result in a citation or seizure of his boat.
Washington has spent generations telling us that cooperation and comanagement are the path forward.
Now is the time to prove it. Because, eventually, every partnership has to answer the same question:
What happens when cooperation becomes difficult?
Do we retreat? Do we avoid the problem? Or do we sit down, acknowledge the competing interests, respect one another’s sovereignty and responsibilities — and find a solution?
I believe it is time for WDFW, the Governor’s Office and the State of Washington to choose the latter.
Not because the tribes are the enemy. Not because recreational fishermen are entitled to everything they want.
But because right now, lines are crossed and they are tangled, and Washington is in a serious state of dilemma.
See more from Alex Van Hine of Badger Fishing at badgerfishing.com. He is on the board of directors for Fish Northwest. Learn more at fishnorthwest.org.
