H2O-
It's pretty apparent you've never fished the EF of the lewis much or I need some of your bait if you have... The smolt just aren't there to be had unless you're up in the upper river in the closed waters, but who want's to fish for dark summerfish anyways that is in the upper parts of the river when it does open back up...
Keith

HMMMMMM should I say it???????????????????



KILL THE NETS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

sthdlh2o; Checking your "ethics" against the ethics of your fellow fisherman and staying one step ahead of the expanding masses changes is OK, but I think if you check your ethics against the resource it will be a quicker more enlightening trip.

stlhdr1 -

This is exactly what I was trying to say. My experience is on a river where the smolt are thick in the Summer throughout the river. I have arrived at my personal conclusions through a completely different set of observations. If I fished the EF Lewis I might have the same opinion as you.

Jerry Garcia -

Could you explain what you mean by that?

It's funny James and I were talking last night and came up with a great idea, if they do go with a bait ban on a river then it would be only fair in our non-communist country that we have a "bait-only" river. That way we could have the segregation that the game department wants, sort of like having no african americans in a specific urinal way back when, we're past that and we all know segregation isn't right. It's not a communist country...

If we had a bait-only river then we also figured it would be a great way to stop or seriously slow snagging during the fall.. Couldn't you see it, snaggers up there baiting up every cast to snag salmon, that would slow that problem quite a bit.

The legislature will not allow for this law to stand and it will only be time until it is lifted. We'll have to be patient and just see what happens. Until then, I will be fishing bait in the EF of the Lewis and every other river that I come across with bait being legal...
Keith

You said you are "constantly comparing your ethical stance versus that of others ". I think {this is only my extremely personal view point} that if you compare your ethics to what the resource needs instead of comparing your ethics to the ethics of the status quo, the journey to what is best for the resource [ethic wise] is shorter.

Wow man .... heavy. Pass that thing over here again ....

That was heavy Jerry, Can I get a hit too....
Keith

I figured that's where you were headed with that...how extremely diplomatic of you. I agree with you whole heartedly except, if I were to use the health of the native runs on my home river to determine my ethics I might not make any changes at all. I'd like to do what I can now to contribute to the future health of the resource before there is a concern, even if it is only in a small way. With the numbers that have been presented above by Smalma I figure that by switching as I have I've allowed three more adults to return (conservatively) minus my predation. Also, I've convinced two other fishermen to do the same, there are ten returning adults right there, far more than I've killed than C&R'ing natives.

Sure, its all based on research that hasn't been proven conclusively and lots of people will question my math which is perfectly legitimate (the questioning, not the math). Hell, out of those 'ten fish' eight of them were probably caught in nets and sold for cat food, which is discouraging.

I'm not trying to preach at all...there are anglers on this board who are just beginning to fish and hopefully just beginning to wrestle with questions of ethics. I hope they look at this issue as objectively as possible and find solutions that are based on the best interest of the resource first.

But remember H20 this whole debate started with the fact that bait fisherman have been segregated from specific sections of rivers, but now the game department has gone off the deep end by saying that an entire river basin is closed to one method of fishing and that's bait. They have minorly addressed the true issues that are stopping our fish from returning.

As you know until they address the REAL problems, I will ignore what has been done and go about my normal and what used to be legal ways on my home river...

One other question for you... How many times have you been on a river system in the summer that is being fished hard with all types of gear and tactics and noticed a dead steelhead in the water?? I know I've spent 1000's of hours on the EF of the Lewis in the summer and during times that it runs 100-150cfs with water temps around 60+ degrees and you can see in every run top to bottom and never once have I seen a dead steelhead that was overexhausted or bled to death... Sort of odd where they get their mortality stats don't you think????
Keith

Now there's a solution to be proud of.

"I don't like a specific law so what the [Bleeeeep!], I think I'll just ignore it and fish like I usually do."

Right or wrong, (In this case it may very well be wrong) once we begin to selectively ignore and break laws even if we may think they have no logical reason for existing, where do you think that leaves us sportfishers in the long run. It's the same tired arguement we've all heard before "Until the tribes stop netting, I'm gonna keep bonking."

If you don't like a particular regulation, use proper and LEGAL channels to get it changed. Otherwise, hopefully the local Game Warden doesn't spend "thousands of hours" on the EF Lewis during the summer, because you my friend are a ticket waiting to happen.

H2O,

I think I sat on your "thrown of righteousness" the other day after our 3rd or 4th visit to that irish restaurant. What was it's name.... Mc something or others.

Welcome aboard Hilo...this is pretty good stuff isn't it??

Tried plunking the Willamette today, pretty sure I needed heavier weight and one less dog!

Good to finally join the boards here. Certainly a more opinionated board then I am used to. Maybe that's the diff between Oregonians and Washingtonians?! Nah!

Curious what a rookie makes of this conversation, do you have an opinion?

Don't know if I am educated enough in terms of understanding the full issues at hand. With that said I would hesitate to throw out any opinion of mine as it appears (from a rookie perspective) that there are a lot of people who have a hard time listening/seeing/hearing any perspective but their own!? Throwing out my novice opinion, that would certainly be lacking in a ton of research and experience, would only provide fodder for those who seem to find it necessary to point the finger at every other potential source of the problem aside from one they may regularly contribute to.

Instead I choose to sit back and soak up as much as possible before formulating my own opinion. I would hope that once I have developed an opinion I would not be so closed minded as to neglect other oipinions whether I agreed or not. But hey, what do I know!!!

I will say that I find the argument to have an open season on Sea Lions to be laughable at best!

Hey everyone.......

No need to get bent here......nobody's getting killed.

I think it's been a pretty good disussion, and the conclusion I've come to is that our fisheries need to be micromanaged, rather than having regulations put in place statewide. The Wynoochee isn't the Lewis isn't the Skykomish isn't the Kalama. The WDFW has been only marginally successful at studying single watersheds and developing strategies to manage them. Whether this is due to budget constraints, lack of personnel, or a mindset within the WDFW is a matter of debate. But if they don't learn to micromanage each watershed differently, then trouble is brewing.

What's important here is that a dialogue is taking place. Obviously, H2O and Keith see things differently, but that's not a tragedy. It's an illustration of how conditions vary from river to river, and why statewide regulations tend to be too general in scope. Keep the dialogue going, and you get a chance to see the slippery slope we're standing on. Bait ban today, ban on fishing altogether tomorrow? We need to find a "level of comfort" for doing what we're doing which is fishing for (whether intentional or not) fish that are threatened. I'm sure PETA's comfort level is that fishing end completely. That's not my comfort level, but neither is bonking nates on the OP because "guides in Forks would suffer because of C&R regs". You find a reasonable comfort level by exchanging ideas......exactly what's going on here.

Keep the exchang going. And don't disregard other people's opinions unless you want yours disregarded as well.

Thanks Hilo...probably a wise choice

Great post Dan, what I am going for here is dialogue. I hope this has been something approaching that.

I've certainly learned a thing or two from this conversation, most importantly that I may have supported a statewide ban going in, now I definitely think this is a bad idea. I am still convinced that my home river could benefit substantially from just such a ban during the summer months.

Thanks again everyone for not straying too far down the path to flames...it's a much more effective dialogue without them.

h2o I think we tend to agree on most points, I fish barbless all the time[well not for halibut] fish bait some, but really prefer jigs. I don't fish the winter nates, and rarely fish for summers[ to many good eating saltwater fish to catch] sorry if I seemed too diplomatic, I like for people to think before they react.

I tend to ageee with Smalma's last post. Nice to see actual facts that I am familiar with. Had no idea my snide comment from last week would create such a productive thread.

His quote about the quality of non-bait fisheries brings it all home for me.

"In fact in almost every anadromous stream that I'm aware of that is closed to fishing, where the use of bait is prohibited, or has little fishing pressure resident rainbow trout are found. Not only are there trout in these waters they often live to surprising ages (up 10 years) and large size (multiple pounds)."

almost every stream with legendary and healthy (not what WDFW calls healthy) runs of wild steel (think B.C. and Oregon) has a general bait ban or some type of selective gear rules.

In my experience I have definitely found better anadromous and resident fisheries in rivers with bait bans. And no worm containers!!!