[quote=stlhdr1 Then the sport anglers become the bad guys with their 8-10% mortality rate with hook and line? [/quote]

Bulls Eye.

You already see SalmonforAll's Jim Wells waving that argument in the above article.

CCA is coming at this as strictly a "conservation issue". And there DEFINITELY are conservation benefits to eliminating that nets that I'm not going to enumerate again. But at the same time, this initiative IGNOREs the "social policy" aspect of this war on the Columbia.

It is the "social policy" , not biology, that is the root of Anglers-versus-Gillnetters.

That "social policy" goes to the question of allocating harvest between the sectors. It was those precisely those fights over allocation in Salem and Olympia that CCA founded its local organizing on.

Suddenly, CCA_OR has done an about-face. Not a word now about the social policy impacts of increasing commercial fishing's competition with sport anglers. Now GRC members say - 'we don't do allocations'.

While "banning gillnets" sounds great (I'm for it) I believe the CCA-OR rank and file will be immensely dispointed when they learn that eliminating gillnets in favor of 'alternative methods' on the mainstem actually increases commercial harvest. That selective methods, don't settle the battle but instead strengthens the commercials' claim to a larger share of the available harvest due to their impacts being less than sports fishers.

(For spring chinook, don't overlook the catch-balance limits with the Tribes, capping the sport/commercial harvest of those fish. We cannot increase the total sport/commercial harvest -- just shift the percentages between them)

At our initial CCA chapter meetings, when we discussed 'getting rid of the nets', us anglers heard - more fishing opportunity for US. It didn't really matter HOW the commercials were fishing, just that they are taking WAAAAYYY too many fish.

There's better ways to do this....

Bingo..........

So what is CCA's game plan with this statement? Obviously it's been round-tabled....

Keith

You heard more opportunity?

How much opportunity will there be, when one of the vegan groups files a federal lawsuit to shut down all fishing on the columbia and its tributaries.


If it isnt shut down, how much will the gillnetters increase their allocation when ESA salmon are extinct. When the ESA fish are gone, there is no reason to ban gillnets.

Still, nobody has been able to explain this one detail:

If harvest opportunity is based on impacts to ESA listed salmon.....

And the commercial fisherman go to more selective methods, minimizing the impacts they have.....

They will fish until they reach the allowed impacts....

Same number of ESA fish die but more hatchery fish are harvested.....

By commercial fisheries.

Sportfisherman get the same allowed impacts but there will be less hatchery fish to harvest.

Commercial fisheries take more hatchery fish and release more wild fish then sporties fish for the leftovers which will be whatever hatchery fish get past the commercial guys plus all the ESA wild fish that the commercial guys release with the new methods,whatever they may be.

With this increased ratio in hatchery:wild fish during the sport season, the allowable impacts will be reached much sooner which will result in early closures.

Why am I supposed to support this as a sportfisherman?

in washington i dont think the commercials will be demanding more fish because they dont have to, the wdfw is doing it for them,

http://www.cbbulletin.com/369796.aspx

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.

also notice it says,

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.

http://www.cbbulletin.com/369796.aspx

within esa take limits, doesnt that mean the same amount of esa listed fish will die ?, also, if people hate fishing behind gillnets how are they going to like fishing behind a method that take considerably more fish than they do now ?

Its the same thing that the tribes found out, with the more selective fisherys below them and the missed run projection..They got hosed

Common sense... Something normal people have I guess... Your question is one that will go unanswered.....

There's nothing like a group of people that come together following the mother cult and preach about what they've done for others in the past. Although the intentions are good (get rid of gillnets) there's better answers than what they've come up with... And the next question by the CCA followers will be ? What else could be done??

Thanks CCA for bullying your way through for everyone and making decisions for the sportsman, and thanks for listening to common sense...

Keith

CCA is hedging their bet that by elimating gillnets they are eliminating commercial fishing in the Columbia. CR gillnetters are not exactly hard working fisherman. They generally run a one or two person crew, they mostly fish old hand me down derelict boats,they fish at night and drift with the current. All of the new methods would require the gillnetters to spend much more time fishing, and sorting. From what I have seen of gillnetters if the gillnets are banned most will just hang it up, it would be a great oppurtunity for the state to buy out some licenses.

Ever heard of the spotted owl?
How is the commercial fishing in California?
Sportfishing in California begins 3 miles off the coast.
How about the proposed MPA for area 4?
San Juan MPA would have prevented all boat traffic.

Look up who is behind all the MPA money in California and other states, and heading this way. Let me save you the time. Pew and Packard. Vegan or not, once the problem is that severe, one of the big dogs like Wild Fish Conservancy with a 2.6 million dollar operating budget, will come in and try and close it. Just like they want to do to puget sound right now. Or did you miss the meeting when their ecologist stood up and said, 14000 seals were not a problem for rockfish in Puget Sound.


At least the people who dont agree with me, will have a discussion.

Must be a slow day on the dark side.

keith answer the question

How much opportunity will there be, when a group files a federal lawsuit to shut down all fishing on the columbia and its tributaries, to protect the last few ESA listed runs.


If it isnt shut down, how much will the gillnetters increase their allocation when ESA salmon are extinct. When the ESA fish are gone, there is no reason to ban gillnets. ESA would be obsolete. What would the allocation be then?

you ever read this ? http://www.joinrfa.org/Press/Hijack20070605.pdf

Join RFA? what the hell have they done here in the PNW?

I have heard a bunch of whining and crying but you guys don't seem to have come up with any answers your selves. You have had the opportunity to do something anything for the resource for years,Some of you have had all of your lives and yet still nothing.

No one said that everyone would like it, but how is the status quo working out for you?


Fishy

Like I said, we're 5-8 years from imploding... Please quit speeding up the process....

I'm greedy, I want commercials gone. It means more for sportsfishing for a while........ But you take away commercial fishing and you might see what you are talking about.

I mean, correct me if I'm wrong but as long as the states have commercial fishing there's viable reason for most hatchery fish, right? You telling me that hatchery fish will be specifically planted for sport fishing alone in the lower CR below Bonneville?

Keith

Hell yes. The fish are a public resource shared by THREE states.

The Tribes have a legal right to those fish and if they disappear, we would be paying them off foreever. If the Tribes had the hatcheries subsidized by the feds, they would still be required to share the allocation.

The size of the retail industry alone, is enough to support a retail fishery. No only that, but you just dont arbitrary erase million of pounds of salmon from the food supply. Hatchery fish are a lot better then the pen raised atlantics. I do not know why the state has not come up with a viable production system that would make commercial harvest cheaper to operate than a regular hatchery that splits its time between species and summer or winter runs.

The money leaving the state for oregon, alaska and canada would drwarf the current reverse tourism dollars leaving the state. Look at the retail fisheries they push now. steelhead retention on the OP
Sockeye in the fall in 2008, when in fact, they should not have done so.

Imagine being in the legislature, when all the lobbyists from NMTA, ASA, NSIA, PSA, CCA, hotel and restaurant association, Car dealers, like selling trucks. who could say no to that. Since when did we elect a politician that was so tight with a dollar, the industry would be cut in half.

http://www.ifish.net/board/showthread.php?t=260348&highlight=billjr64

Never has one of them mentioned the good news about the Colville hatchery, that will be built and how many fish it will add to the columbia harvest.

I DID, see how far it went? So I guess your mostly right. Happy New Year! Bill

I cant speak for the below Bonny streams but over here on the east side the tribes do a number for sportsman with the steelhead hatcheries...maybe we do need the tribes below Bonny after all...

Sort of like the Quinalt... You plant them and they will come........

Keith

Bill, good post. Dont forget to remind mole on a regular basis, how wrong he is. The agreement has already been printed.

There are people on both sides, who are obsessed with taking everything available.

The commercials are not going anywhere we are only trying to change the way they do things. The WDFW has to provide commercial opportunity so that will continue but they just may become SELECTIVE just like all of you "Native/wild/unclipped" Catch and release guys.
So what you guys are saying is that IF the OP rivers went to all C&R that the tribes would take more fish?

Shouldn't we all try to fish selectively?

Fishy

So why isn't hook and line being tested as an alternative to gillnetting, gears cheap, daylight only, mortality rates are already known?