After going to the department in Oly today, I have come to the conclusion that the only way any of these fishing issues will ever get resolved is for the sportsman and the tribes to come together and come up with some type of agreement to get the white commercial net fleet shut down. Go to the wdfw website and it will make you sick, the commercials are getting 3 to 4 days a week on the columbia for the months of september and october and not only that the openings are for all 24 hours of those respective days.
Besides that there is no penalty for by catch and there will be no observers and no enforcement for these fisherman, this just goes to show where this states priorities are, and that is in commercial fishing which is ****ed up and ****s the rest of us over. so everyonbe flood the department with e-mails and letters and lets get something done about this.
If anyone has any ideas put em up and we can start a campaign to get this **** changed!!!
peace I'm out
Superfly

Superfly I agree with your idea to flood the WDFW and Oregon's fish dept too with e-mail complaints about the nets ruining sportfishing. And sports fishermen paying for most of the fish. But the indian tribes have and are always trying to shut down the non indian commercial netters. But the tribes also are trying to shut down or extrememly limit the sports fishermen on the Columbia! So that part of your idea won't 'fly I don't think. Great that you are trying to do something though so keep it up. Thank you for doing that.

I know this sounds nuts, but we need to form some kind of coalition or group to get this done, maybe a march on the steps of the capitol or something, **** I don't know, but we need to do something. Especially now that the commercials will be able to kill kings while we have to throw them back, what up with that???? who is blowing who in olympia??

Superfly

There's already a group willing to do these things. The Puget Sound Anglers. It doesn't seem like the WSC has much presence anymore so I'm going to go ahead and post a link to PSA. www.pugetsoundanglers.org Join the nearest chapter near you.

Yes these groups are out there but they do not seem to be very aggressive or have the tenacity to go confront these problems straight up, we as sportsman need to get together with the tribes and address this together. The tribes have an awful lot of power in this state and if it isright and as one voice alot could be done about the over harvest, and wastage of by catch by the commercials. PSA and all other groups need to become a little more should I say millitant and in your face towards the lawmakers and the department. I will do my part by showing up and joining these organizations.
If everyone on this board were to do this and then march on olympia we would have quite a showing, there is power in numbers, something for us all to think about.

Peace Superfly

JacobF,

Not sure why you feel the WSC hasn't much presence anymore. Hopefully it is just because the WSC forums have been moved off of Bob's site. It was the plan from the beginning to only impose on Bob until such time that the WSC could get their own site and BBS up and going. We have not gone away, we have just moved to here .

As for a political presence, the WSC has been busy pulling together information for submittal at the Steelhead Symposium and the December Commission hearings. We have also been playing the political game with several calls for action on steelhead relevant issues. One which you may find of interest was a request for information regarding the Columbia River commercial sockeye gillnetting the coalition sent to NMFS, US F&W, ODFW and WDFW. We have received recently information back from each and our biologists are reviewing it and will forward reactions onto the board of directors for further action.

Sincerely,
Duggan Harman
WSC Board President


Hatchery fish are for the table, wild fish for the future!

Superfly,
There are sportfishing groups out there that recognize the importance of unity not only among sportsmen but a bond with native americans. The thing is though that this is a long slow process to gain trust. Lets face it there is not much trust between the two groups right now. But you are right it would be a strong group united. There are many conservation groups that are non sport fishing related that work well with the tribes. We as sportsmen hopefully will do the same.
Another interesting concept would be to find away to find some comon territory with the commercials. We all have one thing in comon and that's great numbers of fish along our shores and in our rivers. Commercial fishing will never be as it was in the old days and I think the average guy that commercial fishes knows that even if we ever get healthy runs of salmon back. I think a lot of the problem is the organizations that they are just about forced to belong to such as the gilnetters assoc. I'm not so sure if groups like that really rep the fishermen anymore but it's the only thing they have to cling to in desperate times. I would like to see us work with the commercials if there is a way and I'm sure if we try hard enough we will find away for sportsmen, tribes and commercials to work together against over developement of our watershed and destuction of our habitat. The 3 groups would really be a powerful force together.

Superfly, I would caution who you get in bed with.

I am first and formost a sportsangler, but I see just as many problems with tribes than I do with non-tribal commercials.

For instance:

Non-Tribal netters are controlled by the ODFW and WDFW, the same folks that set our seasons and limits. The allocation we receive is split with the non-tribal commercials. WDFW can tell the commercials to stop fishing, or use tangle nets or release sturgeon or whatever. But the tribes are not governed by any state jurisdiction and practice some pretty disturbing fishing techniques.

Tribes will strip Chum salmon for their eggs and discarding the remaining carcuss.

Tribes also refuse to accept modern science established by biologists. Much of what they believe is based on a 1000 year old culture and not science.

They refuse to use non lethal methods of releasing salmon, because of something about disrespecting the salmon by not eating it. Tribes believe all salmon are provided to be eaten without regards to specific strains that need protectsion.

The spring salmon season was set very low because so much of the "incidental take mortality" on ESA fish had to be allocated to tribes, because they refuse to release fish. If they had agreed to fish selectively, there would be no reason to close the season for sportsanglers.

Over the past few years, sportanglers have taken it in the shorts, because the other two groups wouldn't fish selectively.

Tribes are already trying to limit the non-tribal commercial fishing by strong arming the states into putting more Coho hatchery's above Bonneville dam. This would allow greater access to them during the fall tribal net season.

Once they get rid of the non-tribal commercials, they would mostly likely get the lions share of the non-tribal commercial allocation. You would be kidding yourself to think they don't want that share of the pie.

Who do you think the tribes would come after next????

I truly believe all three groups want more salmon, but I want greater access for sportsanglers. I would never defend a gillnetter, but that includes tribes and non tribal commercials.

N.W.S.S.C. yakima was working with the Yakamas together and accomplished a lot. There was no argueing and everyone got a long. I personally would like to thank the Yakamas for helping to get salmon back into the Yakima River. It wouldn't have happened with out there help. Jim Marquis (Duck In The Fog)

Duck,
Good to hear from you. We need everyones help and you have shown all of us it can be done. I know with succsess their will be failure but we got to try pushing for unity.

I also know for some they will never be able to trust a united group of sportsmen and Native Americans and that is too bad because we will not save wild fish without each others help.

I wonder how people would respond if information was put on fishing gear, like say maybe, er.. uh.. well.. hooks, swivels or somethin'?

I think it basically boils down to two powerful elements, money and politics, (no suprise to anyone) the commercials, both tribal and non-tribal are well organized groups with both money and lobbyists to back there causes, sportfisherman on the other hand, seem to be to busy fighting amongst themselves to figure out how to fight the battle. I don't expect anything to change anytime soon. just my .02 worth