the best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time...

I feel like posting in this thread made my IQ drop two points . . .

Sg

I feel like posting in this thread made my IQ drop two points . . .

The only way to avoid having a delayed sportfishery for summer Chinook or summer run steelhead is the same only way that this will benefit ESA springers without ruining sportfishing for hatchery springers...and that's getting them off the river completely. Fish on... Todd

the best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time And this one I`ve heard alot lately too. The best way to eat an elephant is to share with the entire tribe. Heck there`s like 100 gillnetters or so. There`s thousands of us in this tribe, why bend and give them a share of the elephant when we plant the grass to feed it. They`ve had the best parts of the beast for far too long now and what did we get out of it? There`s no denying the benefits that sport angling has on our economy vs. commercial, old argument, gone over many times. Why does WDFW and ODFW bend over to give these few the heart and liver and leave us the guts? Where`s the precidence for retooling an industry that provides so little? Why do we have to fund retooling them?, any other industry except the government or state passes these costs on to consumers. Ya lots of questions but I think someone should be asking them and more, instead of blindly following over the cliff. Bill

You are probably right. Since the sport fishing community and society in general can't find the balls to send commercial fishing on the LCR down the same history hole as market hunting it probably is better to save some sturgeon and steelhead from the nets. It's just hard to swallow that it's likely to be pretty crappy fishing for us sportfishers on the crumbs left over from the new ESA friendly selective commercial gear. Kinda like have an old sick dog that is killing your chickens and instead of putting a bullet through it's head you take it to the vet and spend thousands of dollars trying to fix it up. Oh well.

Kinda like have an old sick dog that is killing your chickens and instead of putting a bullet through it's head you take it to the vet and spend thousands of dollars trying to fix it up. Oh well.

The argument is going to be the same one we've made at the allocation hearings over the past many years...we're more selective, we're better at releasing wild fish, so we should get the lion's share of the hatchery fish...we can harvest more as we kill our share of ESA fish...

...only it won't be us making that effective argument any more.

Fish on...

Todd

i agree with you, lets say that the initiative passes and heck, lets say washington has one to and it passes and the whole LCR is now a selective commercial fishery taking many more hatchery fish and killing less esa listed fish just like the 25 dollar experts say, what would be your reason for getting the commercials off the river then ??

BTW LB, I asked you a question when I answered yours regarding wanting to kill all the wild fish, which was do you want to end all sport fishing? You never replied. Some of the postings that I`ve read from you lately seem to indicate that indeed you do. This should be much easier when commercials have no ESA impact and sports are the bad guys hurting all the nates. Bill

Boater,

It will be intellectually honest to agree and admit there are two issues here: conservation and allocation.

Banning gillnets and substituting selective fishing gear contributes to conservation by nearly eliminating bycatch mortality. That is a good thing. Even though most of us know and understand it doesn't increase the conservation of wild spring chinook.

Allocation is the honest approach to the issue does indeed come down to "us" versus "them." We will need to admit and advertise that the belief that we can "have it all," that is, have enough salmon for all, commercial and recreational fishing, is dilusional. It will never happen, and all the objective evidence points that direction.

There are several ways to accomplish this.
1. Designate spring chinook as a game fish, not a food fish.
2. Designate sturgeon as a game fish too.
3. Build enough of a war chest to modify the WA state law regarding commercial fishing, making it subordinate to recreational fishing when the economic benefits of recreational fishing exceed those of commercial fishing, acknowledge that treaty Indian commercial fishing satisfies the legislative requirement for commercial fishing.
4. Develop fish traps at Bonneville ladder, Willamette Falls, Cowlitz, Lewis, and Kalama to selectively remove excess hatchery fish AFTER the LCR recreational fishery, rather than before. Those excess hatchery fish could be used for the "highest and best" use, which may be for commercial food fish sale, or another alternative.

The upshot is that the best reason for getting the LCR commercial fleet off the river is the same as it's been for years now. It's an anachronism that has outlived it's usefulness to society. It's a government and ratepayer funded welfare program that benefits few and harms much. I cannot actually think of a good reason to retain it, which is why I've advocated eliminating it for the past decade.

Sg