Here is part of Eddie's post:

"man - we all are part of the problem with the resource. You clearly do not agree with blanket C & R - that's fair. But, what is your solution? If it is pointing fingers at Tribal harvest , then I'm sorry, you have little credibility with me.......("Eddie")

Ed....Obviously you are ecstatic over this ruling but I have to take you to the woodshed over your stance on tribal netting. You have consistently voiced your opinion that there is no sense talking about tribal fishing rights. I disagree. I agree if you are saying that whining about it and blaming is a waste of time but I disagree that nothing should or can be done. Something ultimately has to be done. Remember that they have taken on the designation as co-managers. Personally I think that is a hollow title and nothing more but I do think that most of them believe that the fish and shellfish belong to them and they simply tolerate us harvesting some of their resource. The problem I have is that they are not managers of the resource but are abusers of it on a grand scale.

If there is to be a NMFS and ESA and all the other stuff aimed at "saving" species of salmon and other fish then there has to be a serious debate about the wisdom of allowing this tiny minority of users, the tribes, to virtually run rough shod over it all.

So focus on rivers if you will and tell me the wisdom you see in sitting on the sidelines saying it is no use to even discuss tribal netting of our rivers when we demand 100% release of wild steelhead by everyone else.

Or look at it this way: The Boldt decision interpetations give the tribes a 50% share of the fish. We have allowed further interpretation that allows our 50% to be zero and their 50% to be 80% via the forgone opportunity loophole someone created. I submit that if you care as much about saving wild steelhead as you obviously demonstrate you should be one of the loudest voices now asking for NO harvest of wild steelhead....period. No exceptions...No sustinence....no ceremonial....no nets...no way.

Yahooooooooo!!! Great news!!!

Yahooooooooo!!! Great news!!!
ooops! I was so excited I sent this twice!!

JacobF - As my signature states:

HELL YEAH, TURN IT UP, RIGHT ON!

JacobF -

HELL YEAH, TURN IT UP, RIGHT ON!

JacobF -

HELL YEAH, TURN IT UP, RIGHT ON!

I agree with JacobF. The State is doing this to
make it appear it is proactive. The end result
is going to be to push more steelheaders out
of the sport. Then hatchery production will
be reduced or eliminated. The Game Dept.
would like to do that already if it could. The
reasoning will be that hatchery fish interfere
with Nates. If the Game Dept would increase
the return rate of Hathery fish this wouldn't
be an issue, but the fishing continues to get
worse and worse. When there less and less
fishermen there will be less and less pressure
on the State and Game Dept. to even have
a steelhead season at all.

This isn't going to help, I'll tell you what ill help taking the damn nets out of the river! You watch they'll shorten the season, once they take something away they dont give it back.!!

Very good news!!!!

It will be hard to justify taking this back in two years when it is looked at agian.

Looks like the rivers on the Quinault Res are gonna be the only places left you can retain Wild Steelhead. Those Guides are gonna get mighty rich with 40% or so of our fishing population upset about this.

This sounds great on paper but the evil words "Foregone Opportunity" might increase tribal netting? Maybe not.

Grandpa, maybe I should have worded that more appropriatly, as I do think there is more we can do for sure. What I am talking about is the current status of the courts decisions.

And I too, Cringe when I go over a river and see those floats and nobody else can fish. But after a few years of non catch, maybe we can sway our thinking to them. IT IS WORTH THE TRY!

Aunty is right, after a closure to sportsfishers, we will have the right to protest the sale and fisheries of wild steelhead.

There is much to do, and as I see it this is just a first baby step in the right direction.

Steve

I've got to agree with JacobF to a certain degree. The Skagit's been c&r for quite some time for the full month of April and still is below escapement goals. The Nooksack, "they say", is way below escapement goals even though it's been c&r for years and years. They've tried closing it earlier and earlier and that doesn't seem to help except to give sportsman a lot less chance to hook fish and a whole lot more pressure for the short time it's open and fishable. And what about the Nisqually? Here's a river that has been completely closed for all Steelheading for approximately six or seven years and from what I hear the run hasn't come back much at all. So even though having what native fish we have being released we still have a much bigger problem to solve. This might just be one way the Department of Fisheries will delay trying to address the real science of what's going on with our Steelhead runs. Is closing a river down earlier and earlier or complete c&r the answer? I don't think so, something else is going on with our runs, we just need to figure out what.

I would like to see the tribes go for forgone opportunity. It may be the only way to really get things changed. With it total CnR now for the next couple years there will be an outcry if the tribes do this and for sure bad press for the tribes. Not to mention bad press for comercials on the incidental catch as well.

CFM,

There are two biological aspects to not harvesting wild steelhead. The first is to help re-build dpressed runs, and the second is to protect those that are in better shape from joining the long, long list of depressed runs.

Will WSR bring back depressed fish runs? Not by itself...and I don't think anyone would claim that it will. Making claims that supporters of WSR think that it will is not logical, it's flat out wrong. Most, but not all, of the rivers that have depressed runs of steelhead already have not allowed wild steelhead harvest for a while.

Harvest is just one of the many detrimental impacts on wild steelhead, and all the other impacts need to be addressed, too, and to claim that WSR advocates don't know or don't support that are not logical, either, just wrong.

Harvest is a component of the impacts, though, and pointing at tribal fishing, dams and water quality issues, other habitat issues, and hatchery issues as the "real" problem leaves the harvest issue out. Most folks who will argue that sport harvest is not an issue will immediately turn around and point at tribal harvest. Harvest is harvest, and it's hypocritical to point at one aspect of harvest and not at the other.

In depressed runs every fish, every skein of eggs, and every sac of sperm, is important, more important to the fish than to someone's desire to eat the fish and make bait out of the eggs.

Now that this component of harvest is out of the way, all the rest can be focused on better.

What about harvest over "healthy" runs, like those on the OP? Wild steelhead release is a management tool that should be used to keep healthy rivers healthy.

That being said, what is a "healthy" river? Every, and I mean every, stream on the OP is in a state of population decline except for one.
They are in the same position that all the rest of the streams in western Washington were twenty years ago..."healthy" enough to sustain harvest. Habitat and dams are not much of an issue on those rivers...logging has mainly been curtailed, so forest conditions are on the mend, and there are no dams on those west slope streams. Massive hatchery plants of non-indigenous stocks still takes place, and that, of course, does have a detrimental effect.

Those streams have not had the Puget Sound/Georgia Straits issue of PDO.

What is driving the overall decline of those populations (except for one)? It's harvest.

As those streams' populations continue to decline, so does the genetic material available to the populations, reducing the overall fitness of the population, causing further declines. Just because they are making escapement, most of the time, does not make them healthy...and their continuing decline bears that out. Each individual fish is important to help fight that off, and again each fish is more important to the fish run than it is to eat or make bait out of.

What about the one, single, stream that is above escapement and is actually increasing? We're talking about the Quillayute.

The Quillayute takes massive sport and tribal harvest, and keeps on getting bigger. That's awesome, and I wish that all the rest of our streams were doing it, too. However, it's not all roses there, either. Certain components of the run are getting hammered, specifically the early portion, and the genetic material available is decreasing.

Because that stream has not suffered the decline, or outright collapse, that the rest have is no reason to keep doing things the same way there that we did everywhere else, where they did decline or collapse.

The same folks that advocated this action are not just focusing on this to save wild steelhead. I personally, along with several others on this board, have been down in Olympia a few times testifying about the Columbia River fiasco that the tangle net fishery is. Grandpa has been working on that, too.

Jacob, where were you? Plunker?

I've also been down to testify about setting instream flow standards to make sure that enough clean, clear, cold water remains in our streams to support fish runs.

Where were any of you for those hearings?

How many of you are making your opinions known about the project to fix both of the land slides on the North and South Forks of the Stillaguamish River?

How many of you sent letters or testified about making the lowlands surrounding the North Fork of the Skykomish protected land under the "Wild SKy Initiative"? This would protect miles of spawning grounds for countless runs of anadromous fish.

Sitting on the sidelines and b!tching just doesn't get it done...

Where's the illogical passion in the above statements? You'll find plenty of passion, I'll gladly admit...

Lastly, at every hearing I've ever been to on this issue, and every letter I've ever seen about it, and every Commissioner or WDFW staffer I've ever heard talk about it, has ever had word one from the power companies about this issue at all. Ever.

CFM, you have great passion, and I wish that everyone else would have 1/10 of the passion and ethic you do to work for what you believe in. However, the world of steelhead is a lot bigger than the Cowlitz River. Tacoma Power does not give a rat's a$$ about what happens anywhere except on the rivers they dam. There also is no wild fish harvest on any streams that have dams. It doesn't make even a blip on their radar screens.

Will tribal harvest and habitat issues have to be addressed? Of course. Just like it doesn't make sense to have lots of fish with no habitat, it doesn't make sense to have lots of habitat with no fish.

If more sportsmen would put their efforts together it would be a lot easier. It's a lot easier, I guess, to go fishing, both on the river and here on the internet, than to take a short ride over to Olympia and become part of the solution.

The fight is far from over, but sportsmen in the fight for wild steelhead have thrown down the gauntlet...

Fish on...

Todd.

What I meant was, I don't fish any rivers that currently allow a catch and kill fishery on natives. Every river I fish is already C&R only for natives.

I'm mad because this is a measure that will not work. Instead of confronting and dealing with the real causes of the problem, the state chooses this measure as a cop out. It's just the easy thing for them to do. Now, as the runs continue to decline, the state can say, "It's not our fault, we're trying to restore runs, look at the measure we passed." It allows them to pat themselves on the back while doing absolutely nothing that will actually help fish.

I must of missed something. There is alot of cheering going on because "sportsfishers" can't keep native steelhead. The nets in the rivers are still going to be there and habitat degradation is going on at rapid pace. Hook and line fishing (not snagging) does not have that big of impact on the fish unless you are fishing on the spawing beds. A very large percentage of fish never get hooked. Any step forward even if it is a small step is good thing, but just C & R is not going to solve the problem of declining stocks.

Regards

IB

I'm also concerned about the rule that makes it illegal to remove fish from water. This is another feel good proposal that will serve no beneficial purpose. I personally have caught fish with seal bites, gill net scaring and fish with lamprey eels stuck to them. If they can survive that, they can survive being removed from the water for a few seconds. Anyone who supports this measure is a hypocrite for even targeting fish if you believe they're that delicate and fragile. There's also a safety issue here. I oftentimes am fortunate enough to fish from a 26 foot Seahawk in the Sound. How am I supposed to release a fish without removing it from the water? If I catch a king mooching and the hooks are in it's mouth and there's a 3 foot chop on the water, there's no way I'm going to be leaning over the side of the boat. The other option is to net the fish, lift it out of the water and let it hang there, not actually bringing it in the boat. This would actually be worse for the fish than brining it in and laying it down on the deck to unhook it. This is an un-enforcable measure that will take enforcement away from important issues. Sort of like making the no seat belt law a primary offense.