Okay, Bob... my apologies if i am violating any rules, but this is one issue I am passionate about, so I figured this post (borrowed from the Hey TRBO thread) deserves its own thread:

Just to set the record straight, I would like to share a few examples of exactly how "selective" the Cook Inlet sockeye gillnets can be. Consider first that nearly 22,000 kings have already been "incidentally" harvested by these "selective" nets... and that's just the ones reported. Countless others are retained for personal use or sold under the table. Then there are the "lucky" escapees that undergo varying degrees of bodily mutilation in their bold quest to make their way toward the rivers of their birth.


Let's start with a mild case of mid-body net-scarring. This is a classic injury as the area immediately fore and aft of the dorsal represents the area of maximum girth. If the fish is of sufficient size and strength, and not too badly tangled ( and that's a mighty big "if" folks), it can bust thru the mesh without much further damage.



This next guy didn't fare as well as the previous hen. His problems started just behind the pectoral fins. The net scars just got deeper as he pushed his way thru, until running into an impasse at the dorsal fin. At that point the fish thrashed violently, shredding the flesh on the dorsal fin right down to the bone and severely entangling everything aft of the dorsal in the net as well. Through shear determination (and thankfully dumb ignorance of the outright mutilation being inflicted by its attempts to escape) this powerful fish was able to bust its way through the "selective" mesh to cheat death for the moment. To me it looks like the fish was dipped tail first into a king-sized garbage disposal. Reminds me of a recent Mel Gibson movie I saw this spring. This salmon's body may as well have been filleted wide open to allow maximal penetration of the river's ever-flowing bacterial, fungal, and viral load. In other words, this fish is dead of overwhelming infection long before it is ripe enough to spawn.



Finally, I want to show another common injury whereby the fish gets "flossed" by a gillnet. The fish keeps pushing forward until the mesh lodges in the corner of the jaw, thereby snaring the fish across the eyes and over the top of the head simultaneously. Not pretty. Without the protection afforded by fish scales, the mesh lacerates through the naked skin surface, gouging out the periocular tissues as well as creating deep fungating ulcers on top of the head. Such injuries dramatically increase the fish's risks of acute orbital cellulitis, infectious encephalitis and ultimately neurologic damage that impairs its muscle function and swimming ability. Simply said.... it's dead... and long before it ever sets fin on a spawning bed.



Comments, anyone?

Your right when you say that a vast number of fish are caught in nets that are never reported or sold under the table. What blows my mind is how the powers that be can allow this kind of "incidental catch" and then turn around and tell sport fisherman that they need to reduce their catch to protect numbers. I'm not arguing that sport fisherman on the Kenai should get more kings. If anything they should impose a size limit that would require the releasing of the very large kings. It's the stupid logic that irks me. It just shows how much the fish and game is dictated to by the commercial lobby. Nets shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a river and most certainly never in a river. Everybody keeps saying that there's plenty of fish in Alaska. Well if the carnage isn't stopped before long it will be like the Skagit, Elwha and Columbia tribuatries that have lost runs of monster kings.

Nets are evil....When are we going to have another intiative to ban them? Sign me up...

Gill nets should be banned..plain and simple.

I was a licensed trapper for many years...then, the ARA's decided traps were mean, and the un-informed in this state got just about all types of critter traps banned...

If they can do that, then we should be able to get nets banned.

I'm in 100% agreement with goinfishin...nets ARE EVIL things, and should be outlawed.

Mis dos centavos...

Mike

Excellent work with the pictures Doc. It's a shame that these fish have to be treated this way.
Have you sent these pictures to anyone besides the PP board? Will people ever be smart enough to let a spieces servive instead of making a buck?

Great post!

Your pictures usually tell a good story---unfortunately this not-so-good story is all too familiar to sportmen.

Now that many tribes are making a ton of money from Indian casinos, I think the tribes involved in gaming should be given a choice--they can either have the monies earned from gaming or the nets and 50% (or more) of the fish.

Why should they be allowed both?

Non-tribal casinos can't compete with Indain casinos slots (biggest money maker in casinos by far)---The tribes are not constanly expanding all there gaming facilities because they're losing a ton of money.

I don't remember studying that historically the Indians used the profits from gaming for spiritual or tribal sustenance. If they did teach that in school, I must have been absent that day (the same day that they taught us that historically the Macaw tribe used to hunt and kill grey whales with a .50 caliber gun).

If the tribes don't stop using gillnets (I'm not holding my breath), then I'd at least like to see they're harvesting efforts monitored and policed as much as the WDFW monitors and polices' the sport fishermen.

My 2 cents (that's probably what it's worth)

Yo FnP,

Nice pics, they tell a story only pictures can.

Oh, I think you can type ASS without the $$.

Sad to see for sure

Lets see Dan

ASS

Yup it worked

FNP,

Cute, look at the poor dead fishie! Now tell us about the fish you sank a treble hook into, tortured until it was exhausted, ripped the treble hooks out with a pair of pliers and watched it float down the river dying so you could amuse yourself and have a hero photo to stroke your ego. What even Haig-Brown called a perversion. As for the countless fish unreported in the comm. catch perhaps you could tell us about the countless times you may have sexually abused children.
There have been 22586 kings caught in the comm. fishery of which 13200 were adults. Over 5 million sockeye, chums and pinks were also harvested. Almost 34 million pounds of protein to feed a hungry world.
In the Kasilof section, which seems to be the area of most controversy, there were 14278 total kings taken in the comm. fishery or 8566 adults. For the last year I could find sport catch records of the catch was 8000 in the early season alone. There is absolutely no doubt that the sport and personal use fisheries kill more kings than the commercial fisheries. All for the amusement of a very few.

Duck and cover

------------------------------------------------------------

So AuntyM,

If we follow the historical example of tribal activity and let Native Americans profit from gaming---shouldn't we allow them to have slaves as well?

ban nets for whites let the indidns build fish traps or fish wheels

Nice to know I can always count on you to slither out of your hole to provide positive and constructive feedback Slug Man. It's too bad the truth hurts, even when you see it with your own eyes.... or are your eyes still retracted within your head, Slug?

In any case, my career mission is stamping out blindness, one eye at a time.... the appointment book is wide open.

Good Pictures and Narative PNP Could come in handy for The next initiative to BAN ALL NETS.
Ramprat

FnP, Very well done post, I have seen it a thousand times, and for every specie of anadromous fish that swims. gillnets, purse seins, beach seines, incidental catch, bycatch, whatever you want to call the whole mess is just plain wrong! There is no justification for the tribes to blatantly just net Salmon (and steelhead) just because they can. It saddens me greatly to see our fisheries resources dwindling, all because of a greedy few.
sorry to see photographic proof here, but well done FnP.


Slug? what rock DID you crawl out from under?
you are pretty backwards in your thought patterns. protein for the masses?, dude, get a friggin' clue.
either you are a commercial fisherman, and think the only good fish is a dead fish , OR, you do fish, but don't have the skills, braincells, or knowhow.
You better just relax pal...........yours is coming.


Fuzzy

Mr sluggo...
Take a few unrelated statistics and somehow rationalize them together to draw the conclusion that sport fishermen are killing the runs off and commercials are saving the world. What a crock. If you were to take a look at the commercial vs. the sports catch over the past 100 years I bet the commercial catch would be 100 more than the sports catch. It's only a matter of time until the US govt. comes up to the same conclusion as in British Columbia....the best salmon is a sport caught salmon!

If we'd like to try this again with a little more civility, please do But this one is done.