Sport Fishing Areas

Saltwater sport fishing is one of the favorite recreational pastimes of Northwest sportsmen, who will cruise by boat, travel many miles by automobile, or fly to their favorite salmon fishing areas. Some of the popular saltwater fishing areas are shown in Figures 4, 5, and 6. Highly popular areas at Neah Bay and Sekiu, in the West Division, require four to five hours of travel from Seattle, Everett, or Tacoma. However, the possibility of catching a fighting chinook salmon entices an increasing number of fishing enthusiasts to these waters each year. Table 1 provides information on saltwater salmon fishing for 1966 by Washington State Department of Fisheries code areas.

Economic Base

The 12-county study area of western Washington has evolved from a sparsely populated region primarily oriented to forestry and agriculture to a moderately dense populated region noted for the production of transportation equipment and forest products. The major industry is the manufacture of aerospace equipment, ships, and trucks. The forest products industry is second, which ranges from the harvesting of saw logs to the manufacture of finished wood and pulp products. Of the approximately two million people in the 12-county area, the majority are concentrated in a dense urban band along the eastern shores of Puget Sound known as the Seattle-Tacoma-Everett metropolitan complex. Other population centers in the Puget Sound area are located in the communities of Bellingham, Bremerton, Olympia, and Port Angeles. The study area contains about 60 percent of the population of the State of Washington.

Employment in the manufacturing of transportation equipment and the forest products industry greatly exceeds employment in all other manufacturing industries combined. In addition, other major sectors of employment are services, wholesale, and rental trade, and government. The large number of people employed in the service industry is due to the concentration of population, as well as the recreational and tourist atmosphere of the area. The convenience and abundance of both water and land recreation opportunities is unique. Future growth in the recreation industry will have a significant effect on services and trade employment. Gross regional product or the total goods and services produced in an area is an important indicator of economic well-being because it is closely related to personal income.

These two indicators usually follow almost identical growth patterns. In 1963, the Puget Sound areas gross regional product was $5.8 million. In terms of 1963 dollars, the gross regional product is expected to increase by 1980 to $11.4 million and by 2020 to $68.2 million. As personal income increases, the amount of expenditures for recreational items will rise at a greater percentage increase. The projected population within the 12-county study area is 2.7 million by 1980, 4.3 million by 2000, and over 6.8 million by 2020. Population projects by divisions within the study area are shown in Table 2. Employ. ment is projected to rise to one million by 1980 and over two million by 2020. The following table compares anticipated average annual growth rate per population employment and gross regional product of the Puget Sound area and the United States. Figure 7 presents the projected growth of gross regional product, population, and employment in the study area.

CHAPTER 3-PLEASURE BOATING

Participation

In the Puget Sound study area, an estimated 34 percent of the population engage in some form of recreational boating, as compared to a national average of 20 percent (1). A study by the Puget Sound Governmental Conference revealed that residents of the area place a great emphasis on boating with 8.3 activity days per person expended annually, as compared to a national average of 2.6. (2), The questionnaire survey indicated that an average of 168 hours a year are spent by registered boat owners on Puget Sound and adjacent waters with 75 percent of these hours devoted to cruises of one day or less.

Non-Resident Boat Use

A telephone survey of eight marinas in the study area revealed that from 2 to 5 percent of their moorages were rented by persons living outside the study area. Assuming this percentage range is representative of all marinas, there are between 300 to 800 pleasure boats from outside the study area presently using moorage facilities within the region. Preliminary data from a trailer boat survey undertaken by the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation during 1967 indicates that as many as 7,500 Washington boaters, non-resident to the study area, would presently trailer their craft to Puget Sound and adjacent waters provided facilities were available. A review of the Lea report (3) indicates that perhaps 300-400 Canadian pleasure craft annually navigate the waters of the North Division particularly around the San Juan Islands.

Season

Figure 8 shows boating activity for each of the twelve months. The questionnaire survey revealed that one third of the boaters use their craft throughout the year testifying to the unique boating environment of the area. Over 83 percent of the boat owners use their craft from May through September. This generally coincides with the major boating season in the Strait of Georgia area of British Columbia, as reported by Lea (3).

Expenditures

No direct sources of information are available from which study area pleasure boating expenditures can be extrapolated. However, assuming that local outboard motor sales bear the same relationship to local expenditures as they do nationally, it can be estimated that approximately $51,300,000 was spent in the study area in 1966. These estimates were derived from statistics published by the National Association of Engine and Boat Manufacturers and the Outboard Industry Association.

*Number indicates references listed in the selected bibliography.

The number of pleasure boats in the study area was estimated using statistics gathered as a part of a Washington State Department of Commerce and Economic Development personal interview survey in 1965 (8). Examination of these statistics for the twelve counties composing the Puget Sound Study Area revealed that 33% of all pleasure boats, 86% of inboards and 48% of outboards are registered. From these percentages and craft registered in the study area in 1966 estimates were developed for the total number of boats, inboards, outboards, and auxiliary powered sailboats. Auxiliary powered sailboats were included with inboards in the survey and, therefore, the percent registered for inboards was also used for these craft. Sailboats without power and miscellaneous craft were estimated by subtracting from the total of the inboards, outboards, and auxiliary sailboats and proportioning the remainder on the basis of the state estimates for these craft. State estimates indicated a total boat population of 223,000 in 1965 as compared to the 186,000 pleasure craft estimated in the Puget Sound Study Area in 1966. Table 3 shows a breakdown of pleasure craft in the study area by division and by boat type.

CHAPTER 2-THE STUDY AREA

Physical Description

Between Vancouver Island in British Columbia and the mainland of the United States lie nearly 2,500 square miles of almost landlocked saltwater forming Puget Sound, Strait of Georgia, Hood Canal, and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. These waters lie in a setting of 13,200 square miles of forest and mountains with 10 major and 12 minor rivers flowing from the snow-capped peaks of the Cascade and Olympic Mountains, through forests and fertile farmlands to broad river deltas on saltwater. The mountains, saltwater beaches, and sheltered inlets along interior waterways, combined with a bounty of productive agricultural land and abundant year-round water supply, provide a setting which is attractive to both business and recreation. The deep water of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the connecting deep channels of Puget Sound, Strait of Georgia, and Hood Canal are outstanding natural assets for the development of waterborne commerce. The controlling depth in the Strait of Juan de Fuca is 200 feet while Puget Sound has depths of over 900 feet.

Climate

The proximity of the Puget Sound area to the Pacific Ocean, combined with mountain barriers to the east and west, generally produces cool summers and mild, rainy winters. More than 70 percent of the annual precipitation falls within the six-month period from October through March. Mean annual precipitation at sea level varies from over 90 inches at Neah Bay, located near the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, to less than 17 inches in the Dungeness-Sequim "rain shadow," northeast of the Olympic Mountains. Along Puget Sound the mean annual precipitation ranges from 30 to 50 inches. Mean annual temperatures, adjacent to the saltwater body are around 50° F at most stations. Moderate to dense sea fog is common in the Strait of Juan de Fuca in late summer and fall.

Wind Conditions

The prevailing winds in the Puget Sound area are from the northwest during summer and southeast during winter. However, because of topography, winds within the area may vary greatly in intensity and direction. Winds are generally light to moderate dur. ing summer enabling boaters to cruise long distances over open water. During winter due to sudden high wind potential, boaters tend to confine their saltwater boating activity to waters near their home moorage or launching site. Predominant wind speeds are from 4 to 15 m.p.h. throughout the area. In the Strait of Juan de