There was an Indian selling Wild Steelhead and Hatchery from his van alongside a road in Gig Harbor yesterday, He claimed that they were from the Hoh. Beautiful chrome bright natives in the upper teens. HOW PATHITIC IS THAT? And the people buying them don't have a freakin clue.I'll tell ya, I've just about enough. SCREW THE INDIANS and the Wildlife Dept. (state) for not having the balls to at least try to slow down the netting a little. Five and Six days a week on the coast? Its completely ABSURD when you think about 50% of the catch. I,m sorry for going off like this but this one hits to close to home. I learned to steelhead fish floating the upper Hoh back in the early 80's. I always had a soft spot for those big Hoh natives even back then. I remember back then my Buddy would always say "You might as well kill them now because if you don't the Indians will", and I never belived him.But the more I look into the future, The more I think he might have been right.

Ban all nets or at least police them better.
Good luck,
STRIKE ZONE

I thought that they had to sell them to a licensed fish buyer. If that's true, then WDFW ought to be out there writing tickets. Not that it makes the netting any better, but at least they wouldn't be just selling them out of the backseat until they're tired of it, and dumping the rest.

[This message has been edited by navigator (edited 01-19-2001).]

Mac, Did you take any action? Get a license # and report them. You also have a right to educate the people buying them.

They dont have to sell them to a liscensed vendor. In the tri-cities they come around every fall to sell salmon taken from the yakima, white, and other rivers. They advertise the roadside stands, and its a traffic nightmare. Some people I USED to fish with couldn't wait to buy because the WDF shut down taking of HATCHERY steelhead at Ringold.... what a backwards way of thinking.

The sad and tragic thing is that the only reliable way that I am aware of that we (non-tribal) have of tracking the number of fish harvested by the tribes is the fish tickets that are turned in by commercial buyers. If a fish isn't purchased by a commercial buyer, do you think that they get counted or reported towards the "50%" that the tribes are alotted ?

This roadside and dockside selling is happening all over the place. I have sat at the launch at McCallister Creek (Nisqually) and watched kings be beach seined and sold to the public while they are still flopping. They must get the word out somehow, because there were idiots lining up to buy the fish. The going rate was $5.00 a fish. It made me sick !!

When you try to talk about it to the natives selling the fish they just put their head down and ignore you. Many of the buyers are ignorant of what they are doing and really don't seem to care. Others are not able to speak english. That's what we are up against!