Nah, just a third world group of folks excercising their rights.

You know it Tunalkr... The problem is not the tribe getting the fish its the method they use... I used to fish Soo's creek when it was open and the average size silver that made it up there was about 20 inches...

Just to be clear, I don't "hate" the muckleshoots, the makah or any other group. What I hate is the public's apathy and misunderstanding about racial discrimination. These treaty rights comprimise the basic principles that made this country great.

Reactionaries, a resource more abundant than Green River salmon.

Dolphin gets verbally beat up for being open minded enough to ask reasonable questions like, "are spawning escapement goals being met?" As Smalma posted above, the Green River consistently achieves spawning escapement goals with few exceptions. And that covers all species. Of course, most salmon and steelhead returning to the Green River are of hatchery origin, and we know that hatchery runs can support significantly higher harvests rates than can their natural production counterparts.

As sickening as the depicted scene is to some of you, those gillnetters are just doing their job, which is to harvest surplus salmon. And gillnets are a very efficient method of doing it.

If there is something to complain about, it comes down to harvest allocation and conservation of naturally reproducing stocks. As Smalma pointed out, the terminal area chinook are notoriously poor biters, so the only way to achieve a 50% non-treaty harvest would be to reinstitute the non-treaty gillnet fishery, which would accomplish the same thing as the treaty gillnet fishery, only it would happen a little further out in Puget Sound. The conservation issue that gnaws at my craw is that the Puget Sound Chinook Recovery Plan allows continued harvest rates for Green River chinook (along with Puyallup, Nisqually, and Skokomish) that will preclude forever the actual recovery of naturally self sustaining wild chinook populations.

It would be so unlike sport fishermen to look into a matter before leaping to erroneous conclusions. Some of you called the photo "raping the resource" and mention that it has been going on for years - why are salmon still returning? - without considering that the spawning escapement goals are being consistently met to sustain - mostly hatchery - production and sustain this kind of terminal area fishing.

BTW - regarding the comments about the Bristol Bay fishery, when the fleet is fishing there, the scene is about identical to this photo when it comes to gillnet density. This kind of fishery management comes down to having enough closed periods to attain the necessary escapement. Since Bristol Bay is managed for natural fish production, rather than hatchery, there are more and longer closed periods to allow escapement.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

I received a phone call this morning about the "fact" that the miles of nets down on the Duwamish were so stuffed with coho that all the corks had been pulled under water and all you could see were buoys...and that they were getting ready to pick 'em.

So...after 3 hours of sleep, I drag my ass outta bed and head down, two cameras in hand...and guess what? Same ol', same ol'...lots o' nets, just like every other f'n year down there...all of 'em floating just fine, all the corks on the surface, and only a couple tribal sleds zipping around, none of which are picking the nets.

Whomever was kind enough to make up that bullchit report, thanks...that's what I love to do with my time is use it chasing your made up stories...not the person who called me, as they were just passing it along, but whoever it was that made it up out of thin air in the first place.

Anyway...I took a bunch of pics, and though the first pic in this thread may be a new scene for many, that's how it is on the Duwamish every fall...and like Smalma and Salmo said, it hasn't stopped the run from being waaayyy over escapement, and it hasn't shortened the sportfishery in the Green one bit...in the areas above the nets this morning there were fish jumping everywhere, too, for that matter.

Do I like seeing it? Of course not...do I like fishing above it? Of course not (I don't anyway, even though I live four blocks from the river)...do I like getting up after three hours of sleep to chase bogus reports? No, I don't like that much, either.

This entire thread is symptomatic of one of the most difficult aspects of being a sportfishing advocate...many of those in the sportfishing community are happy to remain ignorant of the facts, and are happy to just randomly be angry about perceived injustices...

Why in God's name would anyone be ripping on someone who asks the only pertinent questions?

1. What percentage of the Duwamish/Green coho run is being harvested by the Muckleshoots, and how much is being harvested by non-tribal fishermen?

2. What is the state of the health of the run?

3. What would you change about the fishery?

4. What result would you expect from that change?

Net fisheries often overfish, sometimes so badly that it's amazing that there are any fish left at all...sometimes they don't.

What people need when they go to fight for our sportfisheries are FACTS and NUMBERS...not a bunch of ignorant anger with nothing but more ignorant anger to back it up...and certainly not ignorant anger at those who are trying to find out the FACTS and NUMBERS.

A lack of FACTS and NUMBERS backed by ignorant anger is what caused the Boldt Decision...not a judge, and not the Nisqually and Puyallup Tribes...less than 7% of the steelhead were being taken by tribal fisheries when a bunch of ignorant jackasses, backed by the commercial fishing industry in the form of Washington State AG Slade Gorton, decided to "put a stop to it"...and at the end of the day they got slammed, and slammed good.

You can't just go into court with a bunch of bullchit information and expect to change anything.

Send this pic to the news? Fine...the public doesn't give a chit...I took about forty more today, you can have those, too...the public doesn't even see salmon until they are piled up in bins at Pike's Public Market...

If you're interested in changing the tribal fishery on the Duwamish, you need to get some facts...answer the questions I posed...how much is being taken, by whom, and how many are spawning or escaping to the hatchery, and how many are needed for that.

Without those numbers you are just making an ass out of yourself, and by association the rest of us, too.

Do I sound a little upset? Yeah, I guess I do...I don't mind getting my ass out of bed to document something going on, but I appreciate it if what I'm being asked to do has some basis in fact...whoever made up that story this morning can take their own $hit out there next time and do it themselves.

Good luck.

Fish on...

Todd

P.S. Those above who think the CCA will end this are also dreaming...treaty fishing isn't going anywhere...but if the CCA wants to make any changes in how the fisheries are conducted, they will need the same FACTS and NUMBERS as the rest of us...those of you who expect otherwise from the CCA, or anyone else, are setting yourselves up for some serious disappointment.

The people running the CCA know that, and it would be a good idea for those supporting them, and any other organizations, to start wrapping your brains around that, too.

P.P.S. I was out there for almost two hours today, and looked at the entire six miles of the fishery, from eight or ten different vantage points...nowhere was the "report" evident...nowhere.

That was so well said Todd...Very accurate too...I think the above quote is important to point out to those who keep building up expectations as far as what a savior CCA will be while castigating all the others who have worked pretty hard over the years because they couldn't solve everything. Perhaps some alliances amongst sport fishing groups can prove to be positive in the future but no one should fool themselves into believing that one group is going to litigate the end of treaty fishing. Maybe an end to sports fishing.

Who is castigating and being castigated?

"the public doesn't give a chit"

Go ahead and accept the status quo. I choose not to.

"Without those numbers you are just making an ass out of yourself, and by association the rest of us, too."

Knock yourself out... It's the legitimacy of these special rights that I reject. My argument is not about who's getting what or wether there are enough fish in the duwamish.

.

If that's the case, Wooly, then you will be banging your head against a wall for the rest of your career...those rights, in the form of a promise made by our federal governement to local tribes, have been secured by several trips to the Supreme Court.

If you don't care about who's catching the fish, how many they're catching, and how many are spawning and are necessary to spawn, then what exactly is it that you do care about?

Fish on...

Todd

"then what exactly is it that you do care about?"

Equality

You think it's futile. I can't be me without standing up for what I believe in.

BTW... I do care deeply about who's catching the fish, how many they're catching, and how many are spawning and are necessary to spawn. I just think there is a greater wrong here especially when it comes to the Duwamish Coho.

Completly blocking the waterway is not OK regardless of your legal status or the health of the run.

Thank you for all that you do, personally, to conserve the resource.

I'd just like to add that the duwamish has always looked like this every year despite how alarming the pic that started this thread. I see the guys(indians) checking their nets and pulling fish(Usually 2 or 3 of them). The first few days the silvers are in the nets are strung like a jig-saw puzzle. After the boys get their fill, the nets are more open. There is plenty of fish to go around.

The area you see there is the main war zone, it extends to the white warehouse you can see in the center of the pic(just to the right of the large yatch), to around the corner to the right about 100 yards to the Boeing pedestrian bridge. It's not like it's the entire river.

In years past I've caught many just below the net area and tons above it. Especially above it after they yank the nets.

~enjoy~

Thanks,Now I need theropy.Good luck,
STRIKE ZONE

So long as the tribal fishers are following the law, and the co-managers are setting seasons that are fair, then I think it is a function of equality that we honor the promise that was made in the treaties...

Here's a hypothesis...I don't know for sure if it is true, but I suspect that it is fairly accurate...

1. There is a number of coho in the Duwamish River.

2. That number is many times more than is required for wild and hatchery escapement.

3. There are tens of thousands of harvestable coho.

4. Ideally, that number of harvestable coho ought to be divided up equally between tribal and non-tribal fishers.

5. Non-tribal recreational fishermen catch those Duwamish coho in the ocean, in the Straits, in the San Juans, in Puget Sound, all the way down into Elliott Bay, in the Duwamish Waterway, and in the Green River itself.

6. Non-tribal commercial fishermen catch those Duwamish coho in the ocean, in the Straits, in the San Juans, in Puget Sound, all the way down into Elliott Bay.

7. The Muckleshoot Tribe catches those Duwamish coho in the Duwamish Waterway.

Those first six parts are facts...not guesses, and not suppositions...those are facts.

The next few are possibilities...

7. The non-tribal fishers, sporties plus commercials, who have been fishing over the Duwamish Coho all year, catch more than the Muckleshoots do.

8. The non tribal fishers, sporties plus commercials, who have been fishing over the Duwamish coho all year, catch the same as the Muckleshoots do.

9. The non-tribal fishers, sporties plus commercials, who have been fishing over the Duwamish coho all year, catch less than the Muckleshoots do.

One of those three must be the case...there are no other options.

If it's number 7, the non-tribals are catching more, then there is nothing to complain about except the unsightliness of seeing those nets there...if unsightliness were the benchmark for fisheries then virtually every terminal recreational fishery should be closed, too.

If it's number 8, then there is nothing to complain about...

If it's number 9, then what do you do about it?

Even as the fisheries are set up now there are tens of thousands of extra coho making it back to the river and the hatchery...they're obviously not being overharvested.

The non-tribal sporties have last crack at those tens of thousands of extra coho...from the foot bridge all the way up to Soos Creek they are the only ones fishing for them.

The sporties are fully incapable of catching any more coho than they do...period...if they were capable of doing it, there wouldn't be 40,000 extra fish making it back to the hatchery...those fish don't fly there, they swim around and through the nets, and right past all the anglers.

How, then, can we even out the catch between the tribal and non-tribal fishers?

Well, there are only two possibilities...

1. Open up a non-tribal commercial net fishery in the Duwamish Waterway so that the non-tribals can harvest their half.

2. Reduce the hatchery plants by 90% so that the sporties actually can harvest half the fish...this would greatly restrict not only the amount of tribal netting in the Duwamish, but would pretty much make it so that no one gets to catch many at all...but the "not many" that are there to be caught will be caught equally, at least.

So...which one do you like better? Add a non-tribal commercial fishery to catch "our" half...or just remove 90% of the fish so that we can catch "our" half...?

Which is it?

Fish on...

Todd

P.S. There were several anglers fishing above the nets this morning, and there were fish plapping all around them, upstream from the nets...

Todd,

Your 100% right. The pic of the nets did get a raise out of me, having not seen them before layed back to back to back to back....

Todd, thanks for the hypothesis. Anybody have a couple Vicodin for my headache;)

Wow a good thread, with some real voices of reason thrown in. A disturbing picture, but combined with the facts, it hurts a lot less.

I only blame tribal netting when I get skunked.

Ego before reality.

"So long as the tribal fishers are following the law, and the co-managers are setting seasons that are fair, then I think it is a function of equality that we honor the promise that was made in the treaties..."

Function of equality??? Really???


Insomuch as piss is a function of beer, I guess we agree...
Cheers.

OK, Wooly...I'll put it this way...

A federal treaty is a solemn contract between our nation and another...

In the 1880's our nation made a treaty with local fishing tribes...they've lived up to their end of the bargain, which is to allow us to settle here peaceably.

How is it unequal to honor that agreement?

If we decide to dishonor it, does it mean we have to leave, since that's what we got out of the deal?

Fish on...

Todd

It was just as wrong then as it is now. It is unequal to betstow a bundle of rights upon a group of americans based on there ethnicity.

Wrong or not is not even a question...we made a deal, one that I'd say we got the better end of by a mile...

Why shouldn't we have to honor it?

Fish on...

Todd