The olm man was correct in the the springers that got TNT. But it was one hole and one time. It has nothing to do with the whole picture. How about the Trask, Kilchis, Siletz, Alsea, and Siuslaw. Those basins ALL had spring runs and all but one still does. The ones that have no hatchery interefierence have the worst runs, (kilchis, siuslaw, & Siletz)

I'm not sure mother nature intended anything more than that to occur. I have an buddy who has roots in Siletz that go back into the late 1800 and even back then the spring run was very small. Now the fall run was unreal. I have some canery reports from Kernville that would blow your mind. The amount of kings processed in July was unreal. The summer rum we have now is only a thimble compared to 100 years ago. It's neat to read this old stuff, but sad to see how far things have dropped off.

The answer to your question can be answered Kevin, but I doubt it will be popular or that you will even believe it.
But it is there.

With the whole point of this charade being that the non-tribal commercials getting access to more hatchery fish, I don't see the feds or WDFW/ODFW looking to ratchet back the allowable ESA impacts to directly counter that intention.

Remember the "we've got to get these excess hatchery fish off the spawning grounds" bullchit? That doesn't happen without increasing harvest...

Fish on...

Todd

We as humans don't always have an answer to everything, theories abound about everything. I do know one thing, coastal spring salmon are awesome. Siletz river is one of the most beautiful ecosystems in the u.s.. Especially when it has fish. When alaska commercials and canadian commercials have huge harvest quotas, oregon coastal chinook runs vaporize into thin air.

True winner would be the BPA who gave the Colvilles the hush money to run this little well publized test and agreed to drop out of the lawsuits. Commercials use seines Sports go barbless unused impacts go back to the BPA so they can produce more juice, everybody happy right.

More words of wisdom from the fisheries short bus rider.
Oregon coastal stocks are a fraction of the pre settlement numbers.
You can't cut down nearly every tree in the coast range over a 100 year period and not impact all salmonic species.
The number one limiting factor on nearly every coastal basin is poor water quality, second is lack of large woody debris recruitment, followed by poor stream complexity.
These three factors can be laid at the feet of the timber harvesters, and their poor not fish friendly logging practices.
Building roads in critical fish habitat areas, insufficient riparian buffers, stream stabilization and zip zapping, which eliminates critical over wintering back channel/alcove habitat, lack of any structure in the estuary, all are critical life histories for salmonics, yet we do virtually nothing to correct it.

Looks like someone has been paying attention.............

BACK TO THE CR..........

So again LB, why are we going to voluntarily give up hatchery spring chinook to the commercials again? Am I missing something? I mean if I was a commercial fisherman on the CR I'd join CCA as well.....

CCA = Coastal Conservation Association

Is the conservation giving some of the sports fishermans allotment back to the commercials? I don't get it??????????????? You won't put anymore native springers on the gravel the 2% will still be killed by the Commercials and Sportsman...

Keith

Todd, I issued a challenge earlier. Im still waiting for proof.

In regard to the Fed ESA policy, the Feds dont seem to care, whether the limit is 2% for us and 13% for the tribes, otherwise they would have done something to lower the ESA percentage over the years.

It takes no more ink to increase the daily limit for sportfishing than it does to increase the commercial harvest. Those who believe the harvest would go beyond an even split with sportfishing are overlooking the economic value of the sport fishery and disregarding the outrage that sportsmen have for commercial fishing and the politics of the Department. Another factor that Im confident of, is that some commercials will not make the change and sell their license back to the state. Fleets continue to shrink due to overharvest. Commercial fishing is one of many choices in the job market. The net result will be a higher quota for commercials depending on the license buyouts. I dont know how they grade fish, but the end product, that insnt all chewed up with be worth more in the stores.

I also believe there will be a net increase of hatchery fish, of salmon and steelhead, because the dropouts and seal theft should go down. As long as we can mandate the daytime use of the nets, they will have better control of the net and and a more complete record of season harvests. This would allow for more accurate counting of wild fish each season to identify trends. If we do see recovery, our ratio of wild to hatchery fish will change.

If the purse and beach seine nets have to be manned at all times, we wont have nets sitting in the water, reducing indiscriminant fishing and spoiled fish. A lost net may not endanger marine life like a typical ghostnet. Likewise changes in sport gear will damage fewer upstream hatchery and wildfish. It could give the department the ability to allow a wild fish to be kept by a sportsmen if the fish was bleeding out as part of the daily limit. Rules could be put in place to keep the public honest, since eventual recovery will automatically increase the chances of catching a wild fish.

The results are a double edge sword to the Feds. If we dont see recovery after the gear has been change by both commercial entities and sport harvest, they will be under the gun to make improvements to downstream survival, and spawning area. I think the benefits of selective gear go beyond fish survival. Another possible action could come as a result of selective harvest gear. If results from selective gear as I have detail do not happen, we will have a much stronger case to ban the nets in the river.

I wonder if the politicians who allow this are democrats or republicans. Are there any republicans in Oregon? Seems like youve been sold out. Now, should CCA make that a high priority or will you continue to fight them at every turn on that issue as well?

The problem in Oregon is bipartisan, the Oregon Forestry Board is made up of individuals from the timber industry, they set industry standards for harvest, unfortunately for fish there isn't any real input from fisheries bio's.
And yes as long as CCA wants to give my fishing opportunities to the commercials, then I'll fight them every inch of the way.

I gotta tell ya, LB, I appreciate your tenacity...but I don't feel a need to offer "proof" of how they do it on the LCR...it's not even a fact in contention, it IS how they do it, and have always done it since the imposition of the ESA...and not only that, it's the ONLY way to do it in the presence of ESA fish that will be captured, whether they be by hook and line, purse seine, gillnet, or large teacup.

Mixed stock fisheries that capture ESA listed fish are ALWAYS limited by the amount of ESA fish that are killed. Those limits are set by the feds, the states craft fisheries to kill right up to that limit, and harvest as many hatchery fish as they can within those limits.

That's why you don't hear any of this "more fish spawning" fantasy coming from WDFW...they tell you straight up exactly what is happening...they are trying to lower the relative release mortality of the commercial fleet so that they will have access to more hatchery fish...while killing their share of the ESA impacts.

In a best case scenario, if this works out we stay at the 60/40 ESA impact allocation that the commercials and sporties have been working under, only the commercial guys harvest far more hatchery fish, downstream of us and before we get our shot.

This is a significant loss of sportfishing opportunity, with no benefit whatsoever to ESA spring Chinook...and that's the best case scenario.

Worse case scenario is that the commercials and their mouthpieces at ODFW and WDFW make the very same and very successful argument that we sporties have been making for several years...since we're more selective, we can harvest more hatchery fish within our share of the ESA impacts, we should get more of the allowable impacts.

If they make that argument, that's been very successful for us, then they'll likely get at least what they always ask for, which is a 50/50 split of the ESA limits...which would not only allow them to harvest even more hatchery fish below and before us, but we'd get a shorter season with smaller bag limits due to our smaller ESA impact allocation.

This is the least thought out, and most preposterous thing that any sportfishermen who cares about springer fishing on the entire Columbia River and its tribs could ever support.

Fish on...

Todd

Freespool, LIKE DUH? Logging has messed up rivers! Enlighten us with more of your genius thoughts. Like we all don't know logging and humans have an impact on the ecosystem. Oh and freespool, a certain coastal river in oregon mentioned earlier has more wood than ron jeremy in it and that river is prime habitat for salmon. More sticks and bugs, springs , feeder creeks that run gin clear, ledges and not to mention a estuary stuffed with so many old growth snags you can't even drive a boat through it. Ya, we all know about habitat, we also know you are one of the ignoramus that wants the gillnets to stick around on the lower CR until you or one of your switch hitter buddies comes up with a plan to rid the river of all commercial harvest overnite. Trust me, its been tried for years but hasn't worked yet. Good luck achieving that goal, in this economy. Freespool, if you actually knew how to work hard at catching fish then you would actually know something about them. My boats don't know what a rod holder is, or what a anchor is for. I work hard and fish hard. I can just see your fat ass now, sitting in your recliner chair with your rod in a holder trolling around getting skunked all day, getting fatter and fatter wondering why you spent so much on this fishing thing only to suck so bad at it. Just because I stick by my values that these nets must go, a bunch of seattle douche bags thinks they need to attack at me with dumbass one liners. Short bus, idiot, needs medication, come on guys you can do better than that can't ya? If your going to try and burn someone you have to try a little harder.

LB, Doc, Aunty, ANYONE??

Has CCA actually round table'd this thought? Do they understand the consequences we as sportsman will suffer if this idiotic idea that's on the table goes through?

Why is it so hard to understand?

Keith

It appears that CCA PNW lacks any real fisheries management understanding, they seem to be happy to just let fishermen decide what is best for the fishery.
They have amassed thousands of new members and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations, yet they are just squandering their new found success.

Steering myself away from this useless sh!tstorm that so many of you are content to wallow around in, a related and useful topic came up.

It's been mentioned that the Colville Tribe is building a new salmon hatchery, on BPA's dime of course, and that the Tribe is testing selective fishing methods, beach seine, purse seine, and tangle net. Has anyone thought to ask why they are doing it, yet the four Columbia River treaty tribes, Yakima, Warm Springs, Umatilla, and Nez Perce are silent on the subject? Could it be that the treaty tribes aren't interested in the less efficient, less cost-effective, selective fishing? And that the Colvilles are interested in it because they are not a treaty tribe with treaty protected fishing rights? They have less "juice" at the co-manager fishery management talks because they are not a court adjudicated co-manager. Todd, be sure and pick up on this if I'm off. As a non-treaty Tribe, the Colvilles are limited to fishing on reservation, like the Chehalis Tribe on the west side. Anyway, I thought it was an interesting point in an otherwise completely gone sideways thread.

You all realize of course that this forum and this thread is read by the commercial fishing industry and ODFW and WDFW, right? Thougth so.

Sg

Freespool, better go grease your net reel on your gillnet boat, its spinning out of control. How much you get a pound for your netted up fish? Between gillnettin and chasing down sheep with your oversized boots on where do you find time to research the real facts?

really? Call them up and ask them.

If the anti side isnt going to back up their remark, you might as well lock the thread. I posted the numbers and the only thing mentioned about them, it to disqualify them on the grounds the tribe doesnt have a treaty. Perhaps the tribes are still stuck in the 70's, when the white man and its government tried to shaft them all over again.

Salmo, the treaty tribes were against marking chinook. It got done anyway. All of you guys are living in the past. To you it will never change. The states been on the wrong side of harvest for a long time. There policies allowed it. State law allowed it. Without the various orgs lining up to represent anglers, nothing would have changed thus far. Im not really surprised. In 1776, there were a few residents who took the side of Great Britian. Probably not the same as working for Hitler, but they too were on the wrong side.

Ah you might want to use another example rather than 1776 and the Brits. Most historians agree that about 1/3 of the citizens of the colonies wanted independence, 1/3 was happy with the crown, and 1/3 could give a damn. Hell even Franklin did not come to the side of independence to way late in the game. Should read up a bit before using history to shore up your position.

SB,

Do you like eating CR spring Chinook? No the seine nets won't get them all but they sure as hell will eventually shorten our seasons and leave us with less #'s of fish to fish on.

Comprende????

Sure CCA will have plenty of good intentions and has done some good things so far but this idea is right up there with kissing the asshole of a skunk......... It reaks dude and I hope you can see that!

Keith