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Fishing in Des Moines

2K views 15 replies 8 participants last post by  hikepat 
#1 ·
Hey
Anybody have anyluck fishin on the Des Moines beach.:confused: If so please tell.
Thanks
Jm
 
#3 ·
Somebody correct me if I am wrong and I do not have the reg book in front of me right now but I do not think you can fish the Des Moines beach itself and only can fish from the tall fishing pier which is hard to do with a fly rod. I have watched guys get busted fishing in the breakwater and to close to the outside of the break water.
 
G
#6 ·
no, a little bit of sleep. But we are friend and he is looking for reason not to fish it even though he is not even a block away from it.... literally he walks through his garage takes a left walks fifty feet, then down a paved hill that is five hundred feet long and he is there. I'm just givin him shit
 
#7 ·
Well boys, I called the city parks department and was told that those three designated waters are indeed closed to fishing. That person and I agreed that the "100 yard" restriction from the pier was understandable enough. The person said the "City of Desmoines Conservation Area" included the general area around the creek. I got no very good idea of where the "South 239th Street Conservation Area" is. I do not have a street map of the area. We agreed that 239th Street probably does not refer to the Normandy Park public beach that is a few hundred yards north of the pier where you should bring your nitro glycerin with you, and that it does not refer to Saltwater Park. So I am curious about just where 239th street is. I am reasonably convinced that you should not fish from the pier North to the private homes that sit on the beach.

sb
 
#8 ·
Appears that the situation at the pier is pretty straight forward.

The following might be helpful -
Des Moinse Park Park Conservation area
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/WAC/default.aspx?cite=220-16-700

South 239 Street Park Conservation Area -
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/WAC/default.aspx?cite=220-16-710

I found interesting that the 2006/2007 fish regulation pamphlet (page 116) lists both the Des Moines Park Conservation area and the South 239 Street Park conservation area as --
"CLOSED to all harvest"

Note it doesn't say closed to fishing as the rules do regarding the waters around the piers or Marine Peserves. Sounds like the conservation areas were primarily designed to prevent folks from stripping the beaches of its inter-tidal critters.

While I don't live in the area maybe another call for further clarification might be in order for those that do and are interested in a potential close-in site.

Tight lines
Curt
 
#9 ·
Curt, Dominic, Hikepat, et al.

I've talked again to the parks department, but also to the WDFW, and to the people who work at the marina.

First, the ambiguity about 239th st. is cleared up. There is indeed public access down there. The regs say "Closed to all harvest".

The "City Park Conservation Area" according to the parks people and the marina people refers to all of the park, including the tidal area. It is also "Closed to all Harvest". The folks at WDFW will get back to me, but we agreed that "closed to all harvest" might leave room for catch and release of Searun Cutthroat Trout. My personal sense of this regulation is that I would be technically legal c&r trout, but that I would be out of line with the spirit of the rule. The Marina people were adamant about about all harvest meaning all fishing. They believe that it is illegal to fish there. I wonder if a local police officer would issue a ticket believing that all harvest means all fishing, and be content to let the courts figure it out.

Finally, the WDFW first take regarding the three hundred feet adjacent to the pier is that catch and release of trout is not precluded by the term "CLOSED to fishing for food fish..." since searun trout are not food fish. Again, the marina people take the term to mean closed to fishing period.

As I said, the WDFW people will get back to me. Interesting stuff.

sb
 
#11 ·
OK

My last post on this thread was on the 19th. The WDFW got back to me the next day with a message. They said that they talked it over and agreed that the rules are about as I reported them on my last post.

Canoe Rider, I do not have any idea of how the WDFW operates. That is in contrast to the difficult and constructive experiences so many of our members have in working with that department over the years. I can just imagine a few years ago hearings being held between the WDFW, interested parties, and the folks from Des Moines. Concerns about rights, and restrictions, and fish, and wildlife, and the protection of a creek and a park that was going to cost someone a lot of money, all of these things were discussed. Language was developed by someone, or a body of someones, that would get the job done, rules were written. Time went by, in my imagination, people retired, expired, got drunk, or got married, or took up dancing, and no one remembered the meetings and what was said back then. Then later this guy says, "Hey it may not be legal to fish there". So the City Parks Department and the people at the Marina are assuming that it is illegal to fish there too, every body knows that ( I do not feel like reiterating the language of the regs). My point is that; I was going to say law but it is better to say rules, can be ambiguous. The couple of helpful and friendly folks in the City I talked to assumed that you cannot fish there. The couple of helpful and friendly folks at WDFW did a little research and thought that under certain circumstances you could.

My personal sense of the rules is that you could not kill resident Coho or anything else in that area, and that you could c/r trout, but that doing so would be out of the spirit if not the technicality of the law. Now, if I saw someone casting a fly down there I would not drop any dimes. I do not know what the rest of our citizenry would do, I often expect the worst. It is an everlasting struggle for me to not go there, wade out with my fly pole and my ass showing, and jump up and down yelling FUCK at the top of my lungs. I don't have to always do that now (why I don't know) but as a sympathetic poet attributed to Dylan on another thread today "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now." And as Elliot said, roughly "Men dream of systems so perfect that no one has to be good."

sb
 
#12 ·
Considering the city of Des Moines put millions of dollars of work into the stream that comes out at that beach trying to allow fish to use it again and the way the law is written, its most likely best to leave the beach alone for now. Maybe in a few years durring a major WDFG cycle put in a request to open up the beach for C&R.
Right now lets let the fish have a chance to return to the creek and be left unmolested for a few years. Keep in mind until last year the little creek there basically ended at the end of the park but the city has put in a passage that opened the creek back up to the golf coarse and maybe all the way back to the air port but I not walked that little creek through all the non-public lands since I was a young boy to see how that stretch fairs. The city has also opened up the creek on the other side of the marina to allow fish passage.
The city of Des Moines has put a lot of time and $ into that little creek to open up fish passages. Lets give the fish a chance to retake the creek before we start to fish to them again.
That being said there are plenty of other beach areas right close to there to fish. Just take a look at a map to find them.
 
#13 ·
My mom has lived in Des Moines since the mid 30's. She can remember when the creek we are discussing would be so thick with salmon they could barely get past each other to go upstream. The other creek in Des Moines in the soutth end of town was closer to her home. Same type of fish runs. Lots of trout in there, too. Those were the days, I guess.
 
#14 ·
I beleive the primary reason for the "conservation area" is because there is a sewage outfall right there. The midway sewer district has a plant up the creek and there is a pipeline that discharges to the sound right off of the beach. If you look up and down the sound, there are several "conservation areas" right off just about every wastewater treatment plant.
I beleive that this is a desingation to perminantly limit the harvest of shellfish in areas adjacent to the wastewater outfall...
 
#16 ·
The pier does not move so it limits greatly the area from being over fished again. If you look in the WDFG reg book you will see that its common to leave fishing piers open even when surrounding waters are closed including the beach areas. As an example look at the Redondo fishing pier it open even when area 11 is not.
The area around Des Moines was set up back in the 70 or 80's I can not remember the exact date as a fish haven do to over fishing in the area. It used to be every pier,beach, creek, every inch a water a boat could get to and the breakwater itself was fished until there was not even bullhead, perch or flounder hardly even left. They closed the area to all but the fishing pier to give the fish a chance to recover.
The beach just North of Des Moines also is the fish haven for the silvers raised every year for at least the last 20 years in the pen in Des Moines that become the ones we catch all year round in places as far South as the Narrows and as Far North as Blake Island and those fish are given a place to grow from the 3-4 inch fish they are released at right there at the Des Moines beach until they learn to live on their own better. Opening up the Des Moines beach would hurt those little guys before they can become some real fun as 10"-26" fish.
For all these reasons and more then I care to write right now the beach should stay closed for now even though that means we can not fish the area while a few gear fisherman and women can though it is very limited even for them since they can only fish from the pier.
Its really no diffrent then the WDFG closing a water way such as a river to all but fly fishing and C&R to protect wild fish while still allowing some sport.
Keep in mind the rules also effected me and still do since until August I lived within walking distance {bottom of Kent Des Moines road} to that beach myself and still I am within 10 minutes of there.
 
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