One thing you might want to take into consideration Irie;

The general public that buys their fish at the store doesn't notice a lot of the differences that those of us who catch their own fish notice. For most of them if it is not repulsive to the eye, and doesn't taste like a turd, a salmon/steelhead is a salmon/steelhead is a...

Of course, I'm just a 'local'. I couldn't have any real perspective on the issue...

The lack of knowledge, or one mught even say ignorance, is not the locals fault. They just dont have any idea what it tastes like to eat a "REAL" fresh fish. I have eaten fish from all different stages. Orginally being from Idaho, I used to think that I like the salmon and steelhead that was caught there. After living in the Washington for over 15 years and catching all my own fish and eating fresh fish, I can honestly say that I am seriously grossed out by the taste of those fish. Take that same guy or gal that has been eating old boots for the entirety of their life and throw a fresh one down their throat, they may not like. Certain things are a trained condition. Food is one of them. Hopefully enough people realize that the table fair of the fish that they are eating could be so much better. That way they can come and buy out of state licenses to help support the local fisheries efforts, preserving the fish that they like to eat so much. Even if they are boots.

I have noticed that the "general public" is being slowly educated. My local grocer (granted I live in Portland) differentiates among the various seafood offerings by designating which were "line caught" or "net caught" and further by a color coded labeling system: Red, yellow, or green based on the sustainability and harvesting practices of the various fisheries. The store is always very responsive to input as well.

If you see inferior product (like when they market Smoked Keta Salmon instead of calling it what it is) then say something about it. The more the store hears that sort of input the more they will listen. Those that can't tell what a quality fish is are not likely to offer input to the stores, leaving all the input to be left by people like "us"...

Dave: I guess I was not clear in what I was trying to say....The quality of the fish is as good in august , sept ,and oct. as the same as fish caught in lower columbia rivers at that time.... the fish caught this time of the year{nov to march)are just as bad as summer fish caught in lower columbia streams.... my opinion is that fish from either system are very poor candidates for the table at the later times of the year..... if you could look and some of the boots kept in feb and march you would not believe how poor of fish they are...I believe the tribe understands this and will fish at the peak of the migration in late august and sept look at the counts and you will see 3000 to 8000 steelhead a day passing granite dam at this time.....many years these fish hang up at the mouth of the clearwater because of the cooler water ....so you have snake ,clearwater ,imnaha and grande ronde fish all in a small area .... this will be a disaster for the sport fishery. ......these are the same fish that the tribes are targeting from bonneville to mc nary only a few days earlier...they have a market for these fish...

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