i agree

Good Grief RA3.

If you think steelhead are about to become extinct how does your conscience allow you to fish for them?

You make these extreme statements about the plight of wild steelhead and then act like CNR fishing has no impact. Sure CNR is easier on the fish than gillnets, but if you think they are in danger of extinction you should be screaming for a total closure of all fishing including CNR.


Wild salmonids are resilient fish. I don't think fishing pressure figures very prominently in the declines we have seen. Look the oldest watershed pictures you can find and then look at the same stretch of river now and it immediately becomes clear why salmonids are having some trouble. Salmonid habitat has changed so dramaticallly over the past 100 years, its a wonder the declines haven't been far worse.

As I've said before, overfishing is easy to fix, it's the habitat problem that is the tough one.

Reply to grampa..... Sic'em! We all know NOW who is responsible for the decline of steelhead in our lifetime....the tribes aren't the only cause of steelhead mortality.... corporations and commercials are equally to blame. Granted, the tribes rape and pillage on a scale which, by comparison, is tenfold to what the commercial and corporate( corporate meaning industrial) entities are doing. It seems that you are very passionate when speaking of tribal outrages with regards to OUR fish, and in the past, I think you have mistakenly come to believe that I am a supporter of tribal fishing rights that are screwed up thanks to the dear departed judge Boldt. I think the tribes have rights to sustenance fishing only, not the outright profiteering and slaughter that they so eagerly persue. I made a statement on an earlier post that I believed the tribes were doing their fair share of trying to conserve the resource, but I was sadly misinformed. To this I humbly admit, and hope that in the future, I will not be so easily swayed. I believe that NOONE should harvest wild steelhead.

Sport anglers, the tribes, the timber companies, and developers are all currently in a circle pointing fingers at each other. Until we step out of the circle by making a serious reduction in our impacts, our finger pointing is the same as their's.

Rob, so what your saying is that regardless if it helps the fish or not its the thought that counts?

I want to stop netting in the sound and in the rivers but those dang commercials and and indians keep getting in the way! That doesnt mean I will settle for anything that seems like it will help the fish regardless of its effectiveness and how it affects local communitys. I will settle for other things that will help the fish though like thinning out the pinnepeds and commorants and fighting for hatchery reform.

stopping nets is an absolute no brainer of course that would be good for fish. However that is not something we can do anything about. Until a court case gets challenged.

About habitat if you look at the habitat of the Washougal 100 years ago what you'll see is that the entire watershed was clearcut to the banks the river had 3 dams and a grist mill on it. What you'll see is that in the last 100 years the habitat has greatly IMPROVED!!!!!!!

Catch and release if done properly has almost no impact. What I cannot understand is why anyoine needs to harvest a wild fish or why anyone would want to other than greed. Explain that to me

Rob..for someone who sees the world in simple absolutes I cannot fathom why you do not hold the tribes to the same standards as everyone else. You give them a pass in the next breath after saying "WHATEVER IT TAKES"

Rob..for someone who sees the world in simple absolutes I cannot fathom why you do not hold the tribes to the same standards as everyone else. You give them a pass in the next breath after saying "WHATEVER IT TAKES"

You can't imagine how anyone could kill a wild steelhead...How about the tribes who catch wild steelhead all the time and feed them to their dogs? In your world it seems to me you would want to take up arms against them and wipe them off the face of the earth! Whatever it takes...your words....whatever it takes. Since the courts won't do it why don't you? Do you write to them and tell them they are idiots? fools? scumbags? Come on Rob even you can apply your brand of justice to everyone out there who doesn't follow your rules.

grandpa.

The tribes have a right to harvest those given to them by the court of the United States. I hate the fact that they chose to act upon that right and I desperatly wish they wouldn't. However as a sport angler I have no influence over what they do or the legality of it.
With sport fishermen however i might have some influence and potential influence of the legality if wild harvest. I feel the same way about the columbia river gillnetters. and i feel exactly the same way about sport fishermen. No one should be killing these fish. Any user group we can keep from killing these fish is a good thing. I totally do not buy into the "if we don't get them they will philosophy" I think that way of thinking is morally bankrupt.
An analogy
Hmm that sleeping hobo there has a dollar bill hanging out of his pocket, I should grab it because if i don't someone else will.

I don't think thats the attitude sport anglers should have. If we have that attitude then we have no legitimacy to any requests for the end of tribal netting.
It's like going to a gunfight and telling the other guy to drop his gun which is pointed at you while you have yours pointed at him.

Still no one has answered my basic question. With so many hatcher fish avalible for harvest years around why kill a wild one??

And why is it I offer any type of compromise at all that I am met with contempt. It seems that you a re only interested in having it the way you want it and nothing else. My way or the highway so to speak.
I have offered many compromises in the past and been basically blown off. since a compromise isn't workable why shouldn't i take a hard line aganst wild harvest? If your not interested in reason why should I be?
Wild fish are more important than your ego, more important than you having a full belly and vastly more important than a trophy over anyones fireplace.
Harvesting wild fish is stupid therefore anyone who harvests a wild steelhead is doing a stupid thing. Stupid is as stupid does so anyone who harvests a wild fish is therefore stupid. Don't like it??? TOUGH.

ok Rob I will answer your question.

There is alot of people out there that enjoy fishing and also (shame on us!) enjoy eating fresh fish, not the crap they supply in the stores. Why wild fish? because of the "enjoy fishing part of it".

Sure there are plenty of hatchery fish out there to eat but It kind of hard to enjoy fishing when half the time your tangled up every five cast by some greenhorn, or your have to fish shoulder to shoulder with people who "set the hook" three or four times in one cast, or how about the morons that wade out where the fish are lying, or idiots using planner boards in prime drift water , or fly fishermen who just watched a river ran through it and like to watch there flourescent line whipping back and forth through the air more than actually working on the presentation, or getting snagged evry three cast and hollering fish on while playing there huge rockfish E.T.C....................................................................................................................

Hatchery fish attract hords because they are so easy to catch or snag.

Wild fish on the other hand are virtually ignored by the newbies and snaggers. I can have several hundered yards of bank to myself or fish with other knowledgeable and courteous fishermen.

Selfish? you might say. Ya I guess a little bit.
But so are the catch and release fanactics who want everything there way regardless of effectiveness or how it affects other people.

Face it ,without wild fish I am screwed to. We can have are fish and eat them too, but we need to act according to effectiveness not this "have to get our house in order first" B.S

There are things that we can target other than nets that would help the fish return, though nets would be the #1 priority. The state really screwed themselves when they just gave the tribes casinos. They had a huge bargaining chip. In colorado the tribes are suing the state for 28 million acres but they say they will drop the suit if the can have one casino!

Micro, one point I want to make about your post there. We have both hatchery and wild fish in the system at the same time here in Idaho. Unless its right at the hatchery... wild fish are much easyier to catch than hatchery fish. They are a lot more aggressive. They look and fight totally different also. 9 out of 10 times I can tell its a wild fish before I ever see it.

B run steelie, alot of our rivers here in washington are the same way (combined runs)

But because the fact that hatcheries fisheries attract so many people most of the rivers with combined runs have property owners sick and tited of all the garbage and other problems so it seems every year there is less and less bank access on those rivers besides WDFW public access. On the Skokomish we cant even count on the state to provide access anmore. The indians just bought 160 acres bordering the reservation on the opposite side of the river including the WDFW accesses next to both bridges. The only access now is through private property or the purdy creek cuttoff road.

Perhaps better hatchery practices could spread the hatchery run out over the season, rather than have them all show up at once, run up to the hatchery, and have all the dingbats in three counties show up to trash the place and snag fish.

Any fall salmon fishery around these parts is evidence that something is wrong with the picture...

Micro,

Not trying to change the subject, but it's been two months...have you found that long list of times that the tribes have claimed Foregone Opportunity and got all of our fish, yet?

If so, you ought to start a new thread to get them all out there so we can all see them...

Not trying to stir the pot...well not too much at least ...but you were pretty adamant that you knew all about them and were going to get them all for us to see, and I for one would really like to see them.

Fish on...

Todd

I am not sure that spreading the hatchery season out is a good thing. At least not on rivers with a healthier than average run of wild fish. A good model for me is the Bogy and Calawah hatcheries. This is also where you may see some of the problems you mentioned Micro. because of the hordes of fish stacked by the hatchery and that this fishery is the only game in town in Dec. It can be short and sweet with hopefully little impact on the native runs.

Micro *LOL* There are plenty of hatchery runs that have very little pressure where there is miles of water between anglers. Blue creek ain't the only hatchery in the state of washington. Most rivers are uncrowded...

KK...keep looking real hard for accurate information on tribal catch rates ...self regulated and all....Hard to know what is really going on when the "comanagers" don't really manage anything but control everything. They do what they want and we can't do anything about it.

a friend of mine turned in a poacher last week on either the calawah or the upper sol duc can't remember.. anyway he had 8 wild steelhead that he killed... Sport fishers are no better than the tribes when we have scumbags like this among us...

Also if you don't like fishing hatchery runs because of snaggers then turn them in!!! Down here in southwest Wa we saw how public ourtage against snagging lead to increased enforcment just this last fall.

Todd, I never reciecved a response from the state about forgone opportunitty. So I guess I cant prove it right now.


Rob, I thought all hatcheries led to blue creek , dum me.What was I thinking? Duh.

I dont know where you have been fishing but Blue creek aint nothing compared to some other places I have been including the skok, hoodsport, minter creek,bogie, lewis,wind,drano,white salmon, nisqually,etc........................

Sometimes your better off keeping your mouth shut and letting people think your an idiot rather than opening your mouth and removing all doubt.

Rob didn't you say a few weeks back how some old guy was fishing somewhere on OP and he caught something like 30 wild steelhead using bait and released them all. Your were using this as an example of how we should all be fishing.

The lewis ain't crowded unless you insist upon fishing at the hatchery, also the cowlitz is only crowded at blue creek and barrier dam, the rest of the river sees very little pressure.
the wind and drano.. are you not aware that there are hatchery runs of fish within an hour of thoes locations that go virtually unfished?