So what part of this statement don't you understand?

Yes, it looks like the "endorsement" is WA anglers share. And for Oregon, in CCA's proposed ballot initiative, according to their press release, there is funding for the commercials through some yet-unknown mechanism.

Great. The commercials can't fund their own fishery experiments, to benefit themselves. So we anglers are going to kick in more money, to subsidize them more, to increase their competition with sport anglers.

Whatta Plan! It's a re-packaged version of what CCA took to the Oregon Legislature. With a subsidy added. Too bad it wasn't instead a straight buy-out of commercial licenses to settle the issue once and for all.

About that 'competition'. Notice the WDFW isn't talking about any caps on commercial harvest. Nor does CCA 's press release mention a cap to protect sport fishing as being a key point of their initiative.

CCA files initiative in Oregon to ban gillnets, tangle nets
By Allen Thomas
Columbian Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
http://www.columbian.com/news/2009/dec/30/cca-files-initiative-oregon-ban-gillnets-tangle-ne/
The Coastal Conservation Association will attempt to place an initiative on the Oregon ballot in November to ban gillnets and tangle nets in state waters.

The initiative was filed on Christmas eve with the Secretary of State's office. The agency has 10 work days to determine if the required 1,000 sponsorship signatures are valid.

Dave Schamp, chairman of CCA's Oregon board of directors, said the Protect Our Salmon Act would ban the nets in Oregon waters including the Columbia River. The act calls for the use of commercial fishing methods that allow selective harvest of hatchery fish, while allowing wild fish to be released.

"Oregon's failure to protect and enhance our wild salmon runs threatens the state's credibility as a leader in sustainability,'' Schamp said. "Each year taxpayers, electric utility rate payers and others collectively contribute about $1 billion to recovery efforts, yet wild salmon, an important natural and economic resource for our state, remain on the brink of extinction.''
The act also establishes a fund and oversight to compensate commercial fishermen for the transition to alternative, selective gear. It does not affect any tribal fishing rights or tribal members' fishing gear.

While the Columbia River is managed jointly between Washington and Oregon, changing commercial fishing methods does not have to happen concurrently, said Angela Hult of CCA.
"It is worth noting that every substantive change in commercial fishing in the Columbia started with one state taking action before the other, and we are hopeful that this initiative will have a positive impact for the region as a whole,'' she said.

Once Oregon's Secretary of State's office qualifies the sponsorship signatures, the measure goes to the state attorney general's office to write a title and text. The title and text are made public, and comments sought. The comments then are reviewed and a certified ballot title issued.

The issue then can be appealed to the courts. Signature collection cannot begin until the state Supreme Court issues its ruling.

CCA will need 82,769 valid signatures by July 2 to make the November ballot.
The Coastal Conservation Association is non-profit organization with 200 chapters in 17 states. It expanded into the Northwest in 2007 and has more than 9,000 members in chapters in Washington and Oregon.

Jim Wells of Astoria, president of Salmon For All, a commercial fishing group, said sport-fishing interests tried to eliminate the commercials via the Washington and Oregon fishing and wildlife commissions, then the state legislatures, but failed.

"Their strategy is going to be to get an uneducated public to approve a ban,'' Wells said.
Sport fishing hook-and-release mortality is 20 percent in the ocean and at Buoy 10, while release mortality in a tangle net is just 14.7 percent, he said.

"They can't sell it as a conservation measure,'' Wells added.

Most gillnet boats on the Columbia River are too small to be converted to the more selective purse seines. It would cost about $150,000 to $200,000 for a purse seine vessel, he said.

Perhaps CCA could push to actually have "all" hatchery fish clipped to see exactly what we have left??

Although it's an question that we probably don't really want to know the full truth about....

Heck, what is this other thread Phoenix put up about the hatchery coho spawning in the wild in the Yakima River creating a wild population and calling that a success?? Isn't that just another hatchery fish claimed to be wild??

Keith

Right. And that's fine. The buy-out settles the issue - forever.

To the contrary, this plan keeps the commercials fishing the mainstem, AND they will be demanding a larger share of the pie (not all) due to their selectivity. They will have taken the argument that sportsman used in these last allocation hearings before ODFW/WDFW and turned it around against us.

In Oregon, where this initiative will be, there is NO definition of what constitutes 'equitable' harvest, which is the standard the commission is supposed to be guided by in making their decision.

Banning nets is fine, I'm all for getting the bastards out, but it has to be accompanied by a cap or some limit on the commercial take.

So your in favor of keeping gill nets in the Columbia River?

Are we all really that naive at what Boater, Todd and Freespool are trying to say??

Sure you can accuse them of being gillnet huggers but think about what they are saying....

You force the commercial fisherman to be "more" selective than sport anglers with hook/line having them use seine nets, fish wheels or whatever it may be then they are going to get a larger take of the "hatchery" fish that are supplied for harvest........ There's nothing written in this plan that caps the amount of hatchery fish the commercials will take with the new plan....

The 2% mortality for Spring Chinook doesn't change so the same # of wild springers die just giving up more hatchery fish to the competition due to a more selective method... It doesn't mean more wild fish hit the redds.... Unless CCA beleives the seine nets will have less than a 1% mortality rate on the wild springers and the 2% mortality just goes away?? Then the sport anglers become the bad guys with their 8-10% mortality rate with hook and line?

I'm still lost, care to clue me in.......

Keith

I assume you know why the lopsided allocation is and has been the required.

Under those same rules and logic, they would probably get a larger share of fish, if ALL rules and laws were exactly the same, as they are now. The legislation in WA does change the emphasis on the language and intent of the DFW regarding all fisheries. The legislation is not about hatchery harvest. Its about saving wild fish.

Our hatchery fish, are no better than the brood stock you use for it. I really dont want to make future generations deal with hatchery only fish. You might as clone the bastards.

I would just as soon ban commercial fishing in the columbia, but the chances of that happening are next to zero. We either pay it through taxes or higher charges for seafood. There is no free, gear.



I suspect that the initiative process is restricted in Oregon, like Wa. The language has to be focused on one issue. Otherwise, it get overturned, regularly.

You are not mistaken Keith. This new plan to remove gillnets is good for the fact that removing gillnets is the objective, but it doesn't help the wild fish in the least. It means a ton more wild fish will be handled as there is lower mortality rate on seine caught fish. They are still allowed 2%, but it takes a ton more fish handled to get this 2% if your mortality rate is lowered by using the seine nets. I think the idea behind it is this............

If Commercial fisherman are forced to use selective gear, or seine nets, the cost in doing this may be so high that they opt out all together. That is my belief on the whole pic. CCA is trying to make the gillnet illegal and then any other method becomes too costly to get those fish.

Keith,

You are not lost. You disagree. I do however find it amusing that one person says, that current allocation equation will be used against us, to the extent that commercials could fish forever, and the opponents to selective gear, grab on to that like bible and run with it.

Who did the peer review? Where is the science and the math? Where will these fish die? None of you guys are willing to back up your projections. Its mostly being used to divide sportsmen.

When the wild fish are GONE, WHAT WILL THE ALLOCATION BE THEN ?

If CCA is that worried about the wild fish then why don't they petiton NMFS to raise the escapement goals? I would be 100% behind that, this whole thing is coming off as a (Save the Hatcherys) movement.

The wild fish will never be gone as long as all the groups keep taking hatchery fish, let them spawn in the wild once and call them "WILD" fish... Silly to me I guess...

As I keep saying, we'd be scared to know exactly how many true wild fish we have left and I'm talking about not counting mis-clipped hatchery fish which so often happens in the quotas against our retention numbers for salmon. It's honestly a JOKE.......

The sooner you all keep going down this path and digging up the bones of what we really have left with "TRUE" native salmon the sooner fishing will end in the Columbia basin..... Don't kid yourself, the true native salmon #'s are as padded as huggies diapers...

Keith

Kevin,

A gillnetter is going to capture the same amount of wild fish, regardless of the net.
How will the seine net, require more handling? While using a dip net/

BTW they have to remove the net from the gill plate and hold onto the fish by hand, which is destructive to the fish, let alone being pissed and crushing the fish. Odd, how we cant even lift a wild fish out of the water and yet, the commercial does no harm to the wildsteelhead or salmon, with his selective tanglenets or gillnets.... my ass.

The hatchery's started with wild stock so I pretty sure if you left them alone, they would return to wild stock provided they have suffient habitat and food to support them. There's a zipperlip run of late kings in oregon that I know was started with hatchery stock and discontinued after a few years. The run is still there, small and barely fished but its holding its own.

I for one understand hatchery fish can create spawning populations but it contradicts with what a lot of people want the believe and what most biologists will tell you...

But that starts a whole new arguement that's been beat like a dead horse...

Keith

You make a lot of assumptions. You dont know who they have talked to, or what the subject was. Hatcheries are likely to be around forever. The capacity is not yet confirmed.

But that starts a whole new arguement that's been beat like a dead horse...

I with you on that one!

My brother's a bio who has been working on the recovery side for the past twenty years and I come to the conclussion that the human brain is only capable of absorbing so much information then it has to start making room for more...Seems like the common sense portion is the first to get jettisoned, when I talk to him, I just shake my head and think what the hell did they do to you.

Keith, it sounds like you cant handle any kind of change, until the problem is so big, you have no choice.

Not the case at all...........

I'm all for change for the better, but not really digging change for the worse. I understand the logic of taking 2 steps forward and 1 step back... CCA is rallying to take us back all 3 steps....

CCA is rolling some big dice, looking to force the commercial fisherman out of business by making them switch to a method that's technically more physically demanding and ultimately will cost more to switch over and do it...

Just remember the road you pave is going to be a tough one to turn back to dirt. If we as sportmans "give" history has shown we don't get it back..

I don't know about you, but I'm tired of GIVING...........

It's certain we're within 5-8 years of the whole system imploding... But please quit hitting the FF button and speeding it up....

I hate being negative, but it's getting rediculous.....

Keith

http://www.salmonforall.org/history/work-is-our-joy-movie/

watch the video and look at the boats and the nets they pulled by hand. Honestly, if they think seine nets are too much work, they need to get a life.

Your assumptions above, cant be proven.