For FishingMagician.com, I'm Eric Granstrom. I sat for 90-minutes yesterday watching the webinar chat of our new Director of the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife Kelly Susewind. Not knowing anything about him, other than he came to Fish and Wildlife out of the Department of Ecology, I wanted to learn more. Turns out, he's a lifelong Washington resident, born and raised fishing and hunting the Humptulips. He says his focus right away will be educating the other 6-million Washington State residents who don't have a clue what the Department of Fish and Wildlife is or does. His immediate challenge is a 30-million dollar budget deficit and said his first salvo in the upcoming legislative session is to ask for 67-million. Susewind said he'd like to keep a model where licenses and fees provide about 25-percent of the Department's funding. He admitted he's taking a crash course on salmon, seals, killer whales and wolves, but made it clear he's a big proponent of hatcheries and a blend of ideas on bolstering our state's salmon runs. One thing that won't sit well with a lot of my Columbia River friends is that Susewind supports maintaining gillnetting the river. Until next time, Good Fishing!