I know the nets aren't good for the fish, but neither are the habitat that we leave for them. Example.. I work in Bothell, just north of millcreek. There the state rehabilitated a stream near my work place. They spent millions to restore the stream. They went as far as to put a spawning pool strait across the road (bothell-everett hywy) this was left along for a few years. I watch the steam closely and seen many silvers return every year. Now they let Windsor Building Company build apartments not more than twenty feet from the spawning pool. NUMBERS are down. I'm not a expert but I'd bet my last X-Mas dollar the apartments have something to do with it. Now a week ago I got a call from a friend and he found silvers dying in a ditch off of 67th N.E going from Marysville to Arlington. These fish are swimming in pop cans trash, and over dead carcass' of other fish. If you know were I'm talking about, you'll know the habitat stinks. A road side ditch is their spawning grounds. Every cigarette and scrap of trash from passing cars destroys the chance of life. So in my mind there are real problems to address elsewhere. These are things within our control, Native Americans are Federal almost untouchable, Building permits, litter control, and clean up committees are state and county matters. Vary Controllable. J.C.B

I think we are approaching this net thing all wrong. The commercial fisher (tribal or not) is always going to have a right to fish if there is harvestable numbers. Why can’t they be forced to fish selectively like the recs have! The technology is out there. Traps and fish wheels have been around for decades. Purse seiners can, if they chose, fish selectively. A minimum level of by-catch mortality should be established. This would almost certainly eliminate gill nets and draggers. If they can prove an acceptable by-catch let them fish. Let the Tulalips use their gill nets inside the bay by their hatchery but not outside. If we can establish into law minimum by-catch standards, maybe like the percentages used in hooking mortality in C&R recreational fisheries, the net issue would be mute.

Well slap me on the @ss and call me Judy!

Native,that's some damn nice arithimetic you been doin'. I checked your 2000 numbers, pretty close, for the most part, but lets throw in some specifics, shall we? Lets, Soos hatchery had a return of 5682, the dept of mis-management estimated the "Minimum" spawning goal for the Green at give or take a 100, @ 8600. That's hatchery and wild Chinook combined. So being the gullable guy I am, I'm left to assume an additional 3000 wild fish made it to spawn naturally? Hell, I'm still going to play,( I'm not even going to touch in on the 50/50 issue.), Assuming all these numbers are correct, Minimum spawn goals "Maybe" were met. "Minimum and Maybe", Now that's just great! There shouldn't be any problem with the health of the greens Fishery with that philosophy. Question: Why was it closed to sport fishing? And no I did not fish during closures, any of them, ever. Nor do I ever fish the creek with the "Sport snaggers" and their 1oz lead and 8 inch leaders (lure optional). My observations come from having lived within 10 minutes of the Green my entire life, presently 5; So spit out the numbers however skewed they may be, I see the reality first hand.

How many steelhead have made it to the hatchery this year?.........10 so far.

I'm not going to continue with the number game....its not accurate, unreliable, bias, and uses unscientific data. I will however make one last point. 23 out of 25 puget sound chinook stocks according to the WDFW were projected to fail to meet the "Minimum" spawning goals.

That's nothing short of sad.

Good idea but few of us remember the initative voted on and passed about the fishing rights that Mr Slade Gorton failed to respond to for the registered voters in washington state

If you can get all fishing people to agree upon one course of action then i will be willing to donate what time i can to further the cause.

I am ex fishing guide here in washington state

It is encouraging to hear so many concerned responses regarding our wild fish. I have been looking briefly at a few fish retailers who sell those very fish we speak of, from the Bogie, Queets, etc... you could order it and have it fedexed right to your grandma in Chicago, right from your computer. It is high time that you all contact these markets and let them know in no uncertain terms that you do not support their choice to sell these gillnet caught fish, that maybe you would support them if they caught these fish using sustainable methods. The fastest way to get them to change is through their pocketbooks. Please e mail them and have your freinds do the same, or better yet stop by the market and voice your opinion, how would a picket line at Pike Market look?, maybe a wild steelhead information booth. The time is surely now.
fish2go.com/products.htm (check it out)
pikeplacemarket.org (e-mail them)
pikeplacefish@pikeplacemarket.com (tell them to stop selling wild steelhead)
check out Pacific seafood company

Please turn your anger, concern, etc.. into action, write Maria Cantwell, Gary Locke, your local politicians, newspapers.
Save Wild Steelhead, make it illegal to sell them
Tight lines, Merry Christmas, release all wild Steelhead.

Fishwhacker.Soos creek only needs 2300 for egg take.The green river about 5200,it had about 6000.Answer to your question, I think the river was closed because w.d.f.w can,t keep an accurate count of fish caught.As far as not being accurate numbers they float the river once&twice a week during peak spawning chopping tails and counting dead fish.You can,t do much more than that.And i,ll gladly say that green river is not one of those stocks failing to meet spawning goals!!!As for the steelhead lets see what happens after we get some rain,Real rain.I know the tribe has only caught 250 at most and thats stretching it.

Nativepride, As stated before I'm not going to get sucked up into the number game, I spit out some, you counter with different ones. Which ever #'s you think our correct doesn't seem to matter, both sets point to a fishery running dangerously close to Minimum return goals.

The Green was closed due to forcasted lower than acceptable returns. Just like every other river that has closures. It wasn't because there were too many returning.

And as to steelhead I absolutely agree, Let's see what the rains bring? I don't have that answer anymore than you do. But while we wait I will assume the gauntlet of nets remain in the river?

"The Dept of mis managment can't keep an accurate count". That's just one of many things they don't do well! See, if you talk long enough with someone your bound to find a couple of things to agree on!!

If the Green is meeting it's fishery goals, great! That would be the best Christmas present I could ask for. But there are to many others year after year that fail too....and I guess that's something I have lost focus of on in this thread.

This states fishery program problems do not lie solely on the shoulders of Indian fishing; Never intended to have my statments imply that. Many, many, other factors have led to it's present state as well. (It would take all the storage on this site to explore them all properly)

Also thanks for the info. fava, some e-mail will be sent to these dealers.

Now off to Christmas and a week off searching for sum of them magnificent metalheads.

I'm done; Merry christmas