On certain rivers fishing is not allowed from boats. These rivers are not in the lower 48- Without going into zipper detail, the reason they don't let people fish from boats is because they don't want you pulling plugs.... You can take the boat down the river but you have to get out of it to fish. It is a good tool for taking the pressure off the fish. At the same time none of those rivers allows any harvest of steelhead. None of these rivers have hatchery fish. It is true "sport fishing" at its finest.. It kicks butt.

So I won't say that its a good tool for all rivers, far from it. It would be a good tool for some of the smaller rivers for sure.

Duck ...

I looked at this post as relating to steelhead as it's that time of year and "commercial fishing" for steelhead was outlawed in this state 75 years ago ...

The tribes are the only ones that target steelhead, thus the term "tribal netting"

I voted environment/habitat but still there's too many things that contribute to the declining numbers of wild fish. There's nothing that I would say that Todd hasn't already.

LB ... I don't think it has anything to do with how new you are to the board. Banning fishing from a boat is a huge step, of course it's gonna be met with some comments.

Want proof?? Look back to the bait ban thread of a few weeks ago in which the board's most prolific poster over the years (under two monikers) heard an earful ...

Welcome

Bob, my mistake !!!!! I can be a little slow at times. Sorry Jim

B-Run....

There are most certainly rivers in Wa. and Ore. where boats are restricted to transportation only.

Cow Fisherman....

You could still ride around in your boat all day you would just have to step onto the bank to fish.


Barbless Hooks.....Scent Ban??? Come on that is just a Bandaid

one good thing to do is to inform your friends to boycott commercial steelhead. when you see it at QFC of Safeway, ask who makes the purchasing decisions and politely inform them that your morals will not allow you to shop at their store if they will be helping to eliminate our wild steelhead. the tribes have to sell these fish somewhere and if we can help curb the demand the supply will follow (although with a lag since most tribes cant seem to figure out supply and demand and point of maximum return.....thats why they overfish themselves right out of a profit at times ex: last summer 25C/lb for salmon)

Leaky Boot
We are all entitled to voice our own opinions, but I for one just don't understand your logic! It is my understanding that those so call "boat bands" on the smaller rivers had nothing to do with the protection of the fish; it had everything to do with the protecting and the prevention of conflicts between bank and boat fishermen! By that, I mean the agencies apparently decided to take such actions, because of the direct impute and demands from local fishers who wanted to stop any possible conflict before it may even get started between the bank fishers and drift boaters. You need to do a search and read all the impute on a thread called "Why does the "Willapa" have float restriction" I think that you will become much more informed about this issue after reading this thread.

There is plenty of impute as to why we have put boating restrictions on some of our smaller rivers. Almost none of floating restrictions that I know of were put on these rivers for fish protection.

Some species like salmon prefer deeper holding water, especially in mid sized rivers such as the Cowlitz or the Lewis. How do expect fishermen to fish for such species if they can't fish from a boat? How do you expect fishermen to use plugs or divers for bait if more then one fishermen were to be fishing in such an area? How would fishermen use their plugs or divers if they could not pull their baits or plugs behind their boat?

Your logic is comparable to something like this; you can use your car when need to travel to work only. You can not use your car for any other business, nor can you tow anything behind your car. You can still ride around all day long in your car if you want to, but you can not use it for anything else!

I don't really want to beat up on you, but when you make crazy unfounded statements like "I simply think harvesting is the biggest problem the fish face. My take on the way to control harvest is to make the use of all boats (sport and tribal) transportation only." you can expect to get some pretty negative responses from this board. There just isn't that much room for more then one or more fishermen to fish from that buoy out there at buoy 10!

It seems that we all have learned the hard way on this board; when you say something, you better be prepared to back up your statements with some sort of facts (even if they are the wrong facts). Again, sorry for the chew-out, and I will be looking forward to reading your future posts when you add just a little more facts to such wacky statements.

Anyway, that my opinion!

Cowlitzfisherman

Cowlitz,

You should know by now that I was "blowing wind". Hmmmm, maybe a better term would be "breaking wind", in your general direction of course! :p

Nah, I don't agree with Leaky boot's position, but I DO think he has the right to express it without you insulting him.

Anybody else astonished that there was not one solitary vote on this poll for sportsmen?

Of course not; this is a sportsmans board afterall. And being true sportsman who could dare accuse us of having any negative impact on the fish?
Of course, these votes are from the same guys (myself included) that are slammin' steel, rippin' lips and firing up barbys and would now have you think they only feed steelies out of their hand, pet them on their dorsals and tuck them in at night.
I wonder if we were to ask the question from the fishes point of view what they would say. But then maybe their mouths would be to sore to talk.

Anyway I was wondering, if this poll accurately reflects what is worse for the fish, could we then say that the inverse results reflect what is best for the fish?

Cowlitz......

You got me, I do not have an ounce of statistical data to back me up. Your "How do you expect me to fish without my boat" mentality is perfect. I`ll bet noone has ever caught a salmon bankfishing the Lewis river.


I think regulations (and cogitation) based on stastical data and not common sense have delivered us to where we are today.

Leaky boot

You are way smarter then me! I can tell by your reply that you will go far on this board!

To bad that you aren’t very well informed about sport fishing or how boats relate to harvest!



Cowlitzfisherman

Actually LB ... I have, several ... up at the Golf Course. Alaso watched plunkers at the mouth get some too when I trolled there a lot as well growing up.

Reminds of the time a seal took a plunker's rod right out of the holder .. I think someone forgot to check the drag

Good call Mooch, I too was very surprised. As you can tell from my line of reasoning ... I'm certainly aware of sportie's effect and fight to reduce them when needed. In the case of my local rivers though, I'd still put the nets #1 though

I recieve an earful everywhere I go????...

Thanks for all the responses I was kind of worried here for awhile that sporties would have gotten some votes because of the intense arguing for closures, bait bans, barbless hooks here in the past by some people.

I think most people here know how I voted but I'll say it anyways. Nets, you can have the most pristine creeks and rivers but if fish get netted it doent matter how pristine and pretty that water is. Some people say my local river doesnt get netted but the fish still decline. I say it does get netted, theres plenty of nets it the ocean,straights,and sound. They are nondiscriminate killers no matter where they are.

I did not vote for Dams because not all dams are without fish ladders. While some dams have totally destroyed native runs like the elwha and mayfield on the cow the majority still run free. Still not good but not the worst in my opinion.

I did not vote for hatcheries because,............. well just because!

micropterus101

In your sort time on this board, and posting, you have learned a lot! It's good to have you aboard and rebutting us when you see a deficiency in what some of us say. Have you figured out yet how to keep people focused on what your issue is?
When you do, LET US ALL KNOW HOW TO DO IT!!!

Cowlitzfisherman

Only when you turn your head to one side at the last second, Sparkey...