they are realy not my predictions its actually what the WDFW is doing, if you dont believe me call the WDFW and ask them, 1-360-902-2700

Aunty I agree with you on most parts of your post, but seems to me some of these other folks are a little naïve as to how any banning of a gear type will actually do anything:

1. The tribes get to kill 12% of the wild spring Chinook run, and they will always use gill nets (or at least they will always kill 12% of the wild fish even if they go selective). We screwed up the habitat and overfished the runs forever….so why should they ever reduce their 12%, regardless of the selective nature. That just means they get to take more hatchery fish then.

2. Nontribal gets to kill 2% (not counting the dams as nontribal, cause they get something above 60%, but of course that’s not a problem worth mentioning) and from this 2%, it is split this last year of 1.2% to recreational and 0.8% to commercial (regardless of the selective nature of the gear type).

3. Getting rid of gill nets does not save wild fish if you simply roll their current 0.8% ESA kill back into the total allowable exploitation. The same amount of wild fish die no matter how selective a gear type is.

Now as this is an Oregon initiative, what makes you think WA will follow suit? I know what most folk’s response is to why we need to use the 0.8% commercial ESA impact rolled in the recreational sector, to get those hatchery fish off the spawning grounds, right. That’s part of the double edged sword of selective fisheries; you get to keep more hatchery fish while killing the same amount of wild fish. But in no way do you SAVE any wild fish in the process….to only real savings is in keeping excess hatchery fish from spawning.

Well WDFW is already trying to test selective commercial gear, having BPA fund the test, and as recently reported from the Columbia Basin Fish & Wildlife News Bulletin (Link here for full story: CBB )
“WDFW officials envision a future in which the river's commercial fishers could catch considerably more fish than they do now while helping boost wild fish productivity. The use of gear that causes little mortality would allow the harvest of more hatchery fish within the ESA impact limits and help control the number of hatchery fish that inevitably stray onto spawning grounds. Too much mixing of hatchery and wild fish is believed to reduce the fitness of the naturally produced stocks.”

To top it all off the WA commission recently passed a hatchery reform policy that gives priority to gear types based on their selectivity. So if the commercial guys develop a gear type that is more selective than recreational gear, they won’t be limited to the measly 0.8% ESA impact limit. If non-treaty ESA share stays at 2% and the commercials are more selective….where are they going to get impacts from, especially now that they can catch more hatchery fish? I’ll tell you where….the sport fishery. Rather than propositioning the commercial sector to become selective, WA should have just removed freshwater commercial fishing from the river. Banning a gear type forces these guys elsewhere and these types of scenarios are playing out in front our your eyes that will result in poorer and poorer recreational fisheries. JMO…

Aunty
Everything going on here, even before the ballot initative, is something I agreed needed to happen. Too many people fighting over to few fish, going to be alot of people left out in the cold before its over. Just wish it could have been handled like adults instead of bringing in an outside group that has a very checkered past. These tactic's worked in Florida and when the credit card economy was booming sure it looked like a great deal. Most of the reports I'm reading now show Florida ain't doing so well and Jane
's down there closing sheet down left and right. So much for conservation..Cheers

so i`m lying that the nsia didnt support the last gillnet initiative ?

i think we need to ban the f`n non-tribal gillnets and give the esa take to sports and have always thought that.

totally impossible unless we get esa take from the non-tribal gillnetters.

We reap what we sow Aunty..Now were can I get some gillnet caught salmon from the tribe's? Without them taking the battle to the BPA were all done..Cheers

YaHOOOOOOOOO...Lay it on em Aunty M

I'm gone 5 days and this thing is still like a rerun over and over again. I t sounds like I missed a pretty good roast that started pretty good of
Lead B but turned into a lynch by a few at the end.

SBD, if you want some gillnet caught salmon you should get it from your buddies at SOS through Salmon for All. Closer to home and all.

1. Nobody ever said "all" but you keep repeating that statement, like somebody's making that argument. Nobody is. It's not zero/sum. It will be who gets a few thousand more and a few thousand less.

2. Anglers will get about 16,000 mainstem springers this year as allowed under the catch-balancing cap. Moving just a couple thousand of those fish to "selective harvest" commercials -- BECAUSE THE TOTAL IS CAPPED we can't take more -- has a huge impact on the sport fishing season.

Maybe WDFW, but don't count on ODFW protecting sportfishing. The vacant GI JOES stores are testament to that. When it comes to sports versus commercials, sport fishers DO NOT MATTER to this ODFW Commission.

That's a nice dig compared to my one and only warning shot thats about to start the war if this bashing continues. I can play that game to.

As a sportsfisherman ,I would be all for a full season like alot of other license holders in Washington and Oregon.

Why is it the gillnetters can run around pretending to be anglers and members of sportfishing organizations. Its much easier to divide anglers first real opportunity to get rid of gillnets and change the focus of the WDFW from harvest to conservation.

Its not enough to attack the proposed gear. They must attack the organization and its members, thru any means necessary. Yet their true identities remain unknown.

When is the last time, a Governor, the Commission and the WDFW were all in favor of selective harvest and conservation?

As the use of selective gear makes its way into the tribal and non tribal harvest, more wild fish will be allowed to spawn. Nothing in the often quoted article about the WDFW, specifies, where the extra hatchery fish will come from. More hatchery plants could be put in the river and hatchery facilities could be used to produce fish for commercial harvest in other locations.

One of the posters here, works for the tribal commission? and he told me, the tribes, as co-managers are required to reduce their ESA mortality. Perhaps, he will chime in.

Years ago WDFW reportedly proposed and testified for increasing the ESA of wild steelhead years ago, from 2%--6% . It would follow, that if the percentage can be raised, it can also be lowered.

I have little doubt, the subject of ESA mortality will come up and any wild fish proponent worth its salt, would not support moving the ESA mortality from the river to the salt. Of course, if the wild fish were allowed to be precaught in the salt, the river harvest would be closed down sooner, not later, as the current opponents of the legislation have argued. Ocean mortaility of released fish has been argued to be higher than the mortality of fish in the river.

If gillnets can be selective based on run timing, so can sport harvest. Raising catch limits could more than offset, an unknown quanitity of fishing days.

Often forgotten, language has been changed in this legislation that would change the focus of commercial fishing industry, to include sportfishing.
Read the bill. The language that so often favored the commercial harvest will be removed or amended.

History has shown, the Gillnetters protective union tried for several years (7) before they successfully outlawed, Fish traps in the Columbia. (1890 Congress) It took many more years to outlaw beach seine nets and fish wheels. In 1950 the only legal gear on the Columbia was gillnets. They took one bite of the elephant and then another. This is no different, than the strategy used to remove guns from citizens. What legislature wants to get thousand of constituent letters, complaining that the DFW wont let their kids go fishing. The same people who claim to want to ban gillnets and LCR fishing, apparently think, thats an easier campaign, than it would be to increase hatchery production, which would certainly benefit commercial harvest and tribal harvest.

Todd and OnTheColumbia, I understand what you are saying and realize you have a much better grasp of the detailed situation than I do. I know that this initiative will not reduce impacts on ESA listed fish, and sportsfishermen may not get as high a percentage of hatchery fish. I have understood these points since the first time I read them months ago. However, it gets gillnets out of the Columbia. And guess what? We are not limited to changing one law for the rest of eternity. Next year we can go back and beat them again and turn things slightly more in our favor. Todd, as a lawyer you of all people should understand that one case or one law almost never overturn centuries of precedent. Small shifts in public opinion and interpretation of laws gradually change social policy over many years. Even if there is little good that comes out of exact changes to law this initiative would make, beating the commercial fishing industry at the ballot box sends a huge message. Then we will keep beating them down year after year until they don't get back up. Success at regulating impacts of non-tribal commercial fishermen will in turn give increased leverage for negotiations with tribals. It is time to turn this train around and get it headed in the right direction.
CCA has a shot at doing that, and I would rather support them than sit around moping about the hopelessness of it all and how it will never work. Some fisheries groups have been doing good things here for years, but CCA can have a greater and wider impact than these groups. They were able to list redfish and i think striped bass as gamefish instead of food fish. Think of the impact if they could accomplish that with salmon and steelhead. One of the first steps they took was to get rid of gillnets. They are following a proven strategy, although it will have to be more complex in the Northwest.
With all that said, I'm not saying anyone who opposes this initiave is dull. Passing this initiative is risky and has some negative short-term effects. I personally think the long-term benefits it would have and the chain reaction it could start are worth the risks and cost. Only time can tell who is right. However, those of you who oppose every single bill or regulation that has a possibility of decreasing your allocation next season, regardless of how much it helps the fish recover, are short-sighted and selfish. Unless you're a guide, in which case I understand that you are just trying to stay in business. Cheers.

Won't that just give sportfisherman a full season to fish over less hatchery fish due to the fact that the selective commercial fisheries will be able to stretch out impacts on wild fish, resulting in longer commercial seasons?

Still, the same number of wild fish are killed, but now more hatchery fish are taken. I just can't get past this detail.

Full season with less fish to go after?

That's correct it was closed because the gillnetters went over the allotment, but that was when we used a 10% buffer, todays 30% plus buffers guarantees this won't be happening again.
I'd be interested in seeing some science that indicates harvesting more hatchery fish will allow for higher hatchery production.
This theory just doesn't pass my smell test, it would seem logical that is you want less hatchery fish on the spawning beds, then just produce fewer hatchery fish in the first place.
Perhaps it's time to look at the real problem, which is lack of wild fish spawning naturally.
The only way to increase wild fish production is address habitat roadblocks and increase the river's carry capacity.
Harvest reform does nothing to increase wild fish populations, but it does seem to indicate that the supports feel that the habitat isn't that bad off, nothing could be further from the truth.

Castingpearls,

Imagine a daytime fishery with selective gear, in which not only will the wild fish be release to head up river, past single or dual barbless hooks and selective tribal nets (under presssure from the feds) but the quota, wont be 5000 fish over the limit. You not only throw back clipped hatchery steelhead going to the Cowlitz and the Deschutes, but you count out the fish over the quota and they go back in the river.

They fish at night, who knows how many fish are grabbed from the nets by seals that are never counted or wild fish that are never released. Selective gear may have advantages in addition to daytime harvest, that would allow better seal control and more emphasis on culling the more active net raiders.

There are groups presently working that angle. Maybe you are a member of one of those groups. If so good luck. There is a lot of work to go around.

LB, why do you think the WDFW is trying to come up with a new selective non-tribal commercial fishing method ?