RA 3

Should not it read "would NOT be allowed to disgrace a fish by catching it" ?

RA3
I do believe we know how you feel ----BUT to be demeaning and almost hateful to those that don't believe as you do removes most of the respect I may have had for your passion about the fish.

Team Keebler gorked the hell out of the reds on the Kenai for a week straight, and ALL of our fish bit the Sockeye Joe rig. (double secret probation rig). If you believe that all of them were "inside" the mouth biters, then you probably don't believe that Reiter Rat listens to "Zanphyr, the Master of the Pan Flute", on his 8 track on the way to work.

We wuz using one of dem Banjo Luhrs.

I don't think the flossing thing is as easy as many believe. There were tons of people trying, and most of them weren't even keeping close to us with numbers of fish. We were probably just on a good streak.

I never thought I would say it, but fishing with the drones for the past 20 years has turned me in to a Sockeye Whackin Machine.

RA3: The law is the law, and no one is "Above the Law". I think that was a line from Steven Sial [Seagal] (aka Nieco) in the movies Above the law. Certain tax brackets require a certain amount of taxes to be paid. If you want to go above and beyond, please pay my taxes too.

No sense in trying to be perfect. It was attempted once by a great man thousands of years ago, and he ended up by being hung on a cross.

Peace

If you are talking about the same 'great man' i'm thinking of, that would be just about 2000 years ago and he did live a perfect life and his death was tempory, and he was not just a 'great man' - he was actually God in human flesh...

Wow - this really is turning into a religious debate

Jerry.

There is no reason to respect snaggers. If you think it's hateful for me to think that doing a bad thing is bad then I am hateful but understand this I don't hate anyone, I hate what they do and snagging sickens me so much so that i refuse to even use methods where foul hooking a fish happens on even rare occasions. If you think it's ok to snag so be it but if you do it around me expect a visit from the game warden and a day in court because i WILL turn you in and will take a day off work to testify against you.
Flossing is illegal in the state of Washington and people who do it are scumbags period!
That doesn't mean i hate them that means that what they do is absolutely disgusting and abhorent to me therefore i call them scumbags. A simple walk on any salmon river in October shows you how little respect these people have for anyone but themselves so that also makes them selfush as...les.

RA3:

I thought we were talking about flossing in B.C.(where it's LEGAL) where did flossing in Washington come into the conversation?

I agree snaggers/flossers in Washington (where it's ILLEGAL) are scum but that's not the original topic of this post.

Anyway I'll think about your position tonight as I bbq a nice fat BC sockeye fillet :p .

BD

RA3 I don't snag fish and don't floss fish [ unless I go to BC with Bobber down next sockeye season] never said I thought it was ok in Washington BUT where it is deemed legal by the authorities I don't believe I can say much to those that follow the letter of the law. I myself reserve those scumbag feelings for those humans that don't value other humans.. The only way you can guarantee to NEVER EVER snag a fish is to fish without a hook or don't fish at all.

But now on the good news side you can go out flossin'/linin' or snaggin'(whichever sounds best) at least until tuesday night on the Fraser. D.F.O. canada has extended the season longer.

RA3,

I bow down to your greatness. You stand on a sportsmans pedastal in the defense of all of the fishes. There is only one thing left for you to do....PUT YOUR FISHING POLE DOWN!!! You might hurt something

RA3,

I respect your courage for speaking your mind. But in this instance I agree with most everyone else, even GOOOSE(that doesn't happen often)!!! You are so into your self-righteousness that you can't see out. I've eaten whale in Japan(it was good!), dog in Korea(okay, but nothing to go back for) and I'm open to just about anything. The point is.... your ideas of right and wrong are YOURS and common only HERE in WA. If it makes you feel good to hold your nose high, more power to you, but the fact remains that you're ignorant for thinking that somehow WA morals are somehow more relevant than others'. It is nice to see you take the high ground as you see it, but you need to get out of your burrow!

ALOT! of fish "bit" the hook today up on the Fraser.
I ended up playing Taxi driver for a few Yanks willing to spend the BIG BUCKS to "Catch" 2 sockeye. I'm still too sore to cast. I watched, and played with my "NEW" stainless steel zipper sewn into my shoulder down to my chest.
Everyone but 1 guy, got fish. Easy, Meat Feast? NOT!
There were more fish in the river today than I've seen all last week.
Jetted passed my old friend "THE NET!" piled up on the beach, cut up into many pieces.
Bowed my head, glared and paid my respects (letting it known it's number one) as I passed by.
All of the nets today had "alot" of juggs on them. WOW, that's a great idea! Someone in the tribe can think! Must of been the Chief.
Sorry, alittle sarcasam, I'm only human.

I was wondering, when we are fishing with eggs,(or a Wet Fly) drift fishing, how do we "KNOW", that King, Steelhead or Silver "bit" the hook instead of just being flossed with a glob of eggs? :p
What are the chances of a fish hooked in the mouth, that it could of been FLOSSED? Um, could it possiably... no way I'm a PURIST "They all bite my hooks!"

"Have a Nice Day!"

GEE

When in Rome do as who?????? Who said that?????
Ever wonder why?

I have come to the conclusion that I have a chronic gas problem

There goes another one. But seriously, I am one of those guys that learned to fish on a river that is known for flossing. Maybe I should have just said the Cowlitz. I had absolutely no idea I was snagging fish until Herzog told me one day while shopping at Sportco. I made an immediate decision to stop after that. Yes, I caught far fewer fish, but the reward is so much greater when you hook a fish using your own secret cure or concoction. After being a "purist" for a year or so I will admit that I flossed a little bit this summer. However, I will only do so in a river that has an excess of hatchery stock, ie: Cowlitz. Those fish are created for the BBQ. I wouldn't go around bragging that I flossed fish on the Fraser. Even though 90% of the guys out there do it, you are still tampering with a native stock. You could still catch a decent amount of fish using a two foot leader. Save the lining for recycled fish!

Well, everyone else and his brother have jumped in here so why not? In response to the question, best paraphrased "how do you know if the fish bit or you lined it?" - well, you don't, unless you design your gear to facilitate lining over biting and know in advance that is what is going on. Things like leaders longer than 2 feet facilitate lining, so do using things like small corkies that hold your long leader at fish mouth elevation above the bottom. Unfortunately, so does fly fishing for stacked up adult salmonids with deepwater express, which is why I don't do much of it anymore (yep, I'm in the camp that prefers the fish bite rather than bite the fish myself). I too didn't realize what was going on - I thought that if you used a fly line and a single barbless hook there was no way you could purposefully snag fish - until I found a perftect fly pool on the Satsop one dry fall that had tons of huge bright chum stacked in it that fell for the fly one after the other I thought - until one afternoon when the backlight was just right and I could see what was going on. The relatively short 3 foot leader I was using would touch their teeth breifly, they would open their mouths wide and shake their head, and in would go the fly. All the fish I hooked were caught on the inside of the mouth in the corner of the jaw on the same side I was standing on, but none if them bit the fly, the fly always bit them. The fact that I wasn't trying to snag fish and that I always c&r'd them didn't matter to me - I was snagging and all the fun went out of it, even though it was prior to that time - and still would be if I could make them bite - a blast fighting huge chum on my low-tech knuckle buster fly gear. This is, however, a personal problem that I would not foist onto others who enjoy the landing no matter how they catch them - and for you for whom ignorance is bliss, sorry.

OK. I understand that the theory behind this is that there are "plenty" of fish and this fishery exsists so that people can take fish home and that is why people go there and "fish" the way they do. I understand that but i don't agree with it. However i suppose i should not have called anyone a scumbag.
I hope you guys understand my concern though. That type of fishing has spread like a plague here in Southwest Washington and Northern oregon. it becomes acceptable to snag whenever fish become difficult to catch legally. That I believe is an incredibly bad thing.

RA3,
I think the people who try and force their moralities on others have done far greater harm to the world then those who have hooked a few fish on the outside of the mouth....but given your argument is strictly emotional, you may not be able to see the truth in that.

Craven morehead

I disagree I think people deciding that morality is a personal choice to believe or not to believe has done misslions(literally) times more damage than people pushing their morality on other people. Granted we are gatting away from the topic at hand but as an example Hitler decided to forego morality by ignoreing a small well known passage "thou shalt not commit Murder" because he wanted to make up his own morality and suggest that certain people it didn't matter if you murdered them or not. The same could be said for Stalin. Another example would be senator Mcarthy who ignored our constitution, ignored the morality of government as laid down by our founding fathers to pursue a witch huntof UnAmerican activities.
When people set aside morality things go bad PERIOD!

Granted, we are only talking about fishing but when someone chooses to set aside ethics in the sport it is bad for all of us. Your own personal rights to do whatever you want are NOT more important that everyone elses rights. There are long established traditions in salmon and steelhead fishing, to maintain the quaity of experience that we all seek we all must abide by thoes traditions. If everyone started fishing over spawning fish ( on redds) we would quickly have no fish left.

We need morals wether in life of on the river and people need to abide by them.

RA3 I think that you are mixing up "morality" and "ethics", especially since you use them interchangably. There is probably a difference. "Morality" implies the rules set down by the Almighty, and I really doubt that God much gives a hoot whether or not we line or snag fish. "Ethics" implies conformity to common human values, and that is more likely what we are talking about. Big difference.

Thumper.. it's probably time for this thread to die but anyway... Ethics and morality may not be interchangable but the concept of both are very much related. They are both rules for governing behavior. All i am saying is that some behaviors should not be displayed on a stream by anyoe, let alone thoes professiong to be sportsmen. I believe that as an absolute because i don't feel that I have the right to go out and ruin anyone elses day. Snaggers very often ruin the day foreveryone else, just like the guy who achors up in the middle of a trolling area. wether it's morality or ethincs or whateverr else we choose to call it people should behave properly while in the field, if they don't they show disrespect for everyone else out there and for the resource itself. it is such people I am referring to when i use strong language. I think it is unsportsman like to snag a fish no matter the species, the purpose you have for the fish or the willingness of that species to bite.
Snagging IS ethically wrong no one should ever be doing it for any reason.