If NMFS believes that opinion then there will be major cuts in hatchery funding. We all better find another location to fish in the future.

" Considered by the National Marine Fisheries Service, but all of it comes amid grim environmental news. Hatchery fish interbreed with wild fish, making wild fish more prone to disease".

Been saying this all along 1 group wants to go selective only, while another group wants the hatchery's gone. Obviously the 2 plans won't work well together, and it's pretty obvious why the tribe's haven't jumped head first into selective fishing when the pool is about ready to be drained.

There is more that one group that want to go selective only and subsequently want hatcheries to supply those fish.

The Colvilles are building a $41 million hatchery and plan on utilizing the most out of returning fish. Their quote:

"Additionally, and importantly, the Colville
Tribes have embarked on a well-funded program to
develop, test and deploy live-capture, fishing gears so
that we can harvest the substantial majority of our
ceremonial and subsistence fish (including spring
Chinook, sockeye, steelhead, and summer Chinook)
selectively by harvesting the marked hatchery-origin
fish while releasing wild fish unharmed to propagate
future generations.
The Colville Tribes will harvest selectively because we
believe the best available scientific information clearly
indicates that sufficient escapement of wild fish is
required to restore and promote the health of
anadromous salmonid populations and provide the
broodstock for our hatchery programs".

Seems like the only thing a few people here are concerned about is how many damn fish they can catch. We just had one of the best Spring Seasons on record with low impact rates.

Right now the Steelhead are going thru in record numbers. I have personally released more wild fish than ever but guess what? They are marked and cut from passing thru the walls of death. And all we hear is "Whahh I'm not going to get to catch as many fish as I did before." Thats right! Leave the nets in and kill undetermined numbers of wild fish and Steelhead. As long as you have those hatchery fish who cares?

All a few can think of is how many hatchery fish the commercials will be killing with 0 to 1 percent impact rates on wild fish.

Do they really believe the Departments are going to shut the sports off when they are the major source of funding? Read the Statutes before making statements that the commercials will get "all" or even the majority of the fish. Right now neither one of the groups can even begin to harvest all the hatchery fish.

As long as I can remember the sports have been pissed about the gillnets and trying to get them off the river. Why some here even suggested harvesting at the ladders! Talk about no impact rates! Golly do you think they would get all the fish in that scenario?

The Tribes are already under pressure from the Colvilles to consider low impact gear. The only reason they use gillnets is because the lower river kill netters use them. We taught them well!

Bottom line is the nets are killing wild fish in undocumented numbers. Each year scientists come up with new figures and managers try to justify the ancient, antiquated, indiscriminate gear. Wake up! It's not only killing hatchery fish! Its killing wild Salmon and Steelhead or injuring them so badly they can't spawn even when they do reach their destination. No one at the hearings want to talk about drop out rates, or even how many fish get tossed over the side and never recorded under cover of darkness.

Do you think Russia banned the use of gillnets so the commercials could get more fish?

Ghost nets are just another part of the equation. don't need to go into that. Anyone who can read knows what they do.

Selective fishing with tanglenets (gillnets to Steelhead) is a joke! But no one is laughing.

you are 100 percent wrong, if they get it down to a 0 to 1 percent release mortality rate it will just take them longer to kill the esa take that they have been allocated, plus, they will never get a 0 release mortality rate.

No kidding. Unbelievable!! Why on earth would a sportsfisher be concerned at all about being able to catch multiple fish they can take home and share with their family and friends? It just boggles the mind.

i dont think they will shut us off but they are going to make sportfishing suck and when this does happen afew of us here will have no problem saying "i told you so"

The point is you can. And at the same time you can support a system designed to NOT kill protected species. Or does that just go over your head?

That would really be in the Department's best interest now wouldn't it Boater? Have you ever sat on a committee of any kind? Or do you just sit behind your computer and pot shot CCA?

By the way I like your Avatar. Thank god we don't have any of those in our chapter. They actually go out and raise money instead of holding up a sign and begging for it.

I would re frame it like this: the selective gear would decrease harvest of native fish as a % of total fish caught. It is really hard to convince me that that is ever bad. I know it is more complicated than that, but that reaches my gut.

Logically, the commercial harvest is a related but not dependent variable. Commercial harvest can scientifically and practically (maybe not legally) be set by limits other than ESA impact.

Maybe selective commercial gear down low, with hatchery fish harvested en mass at terminal fishery sites? As much as I hate the hatchery brats that shoot right back up to the hatchery (and don't hold in the natural spots in the rivers) maybe that is the best long term. (I can see it now, reserved fishing sites on the piers going out into Reiter ponds) and harvest weirs just above. Uff Da.

Let me be clear on at least one point, I ultimately think gill nets should be eliminated from the CR. The ESA mortality is just too high. The SAFE zones will prove out within a couple of years whether they will work as a "terminal" fishery.

Also, I think one of the elephants in the room is the 13% ESA mortality the tribal co managers are entitled to with the remaining 2% split between non tribal commercials and sporties. Maybe a state or fed buy back of permits is the way to go.

Good conversation, thanks.

Decreasing allowable ESA impacts int that context works for me.

in that news release it says "“Our shared goal is to identify and develop commercial fishing gear capable of catching large numbers of hatchery salmon", how can that not effect sportfishing ?

thats only on the spring chinook run, there are other esa take amounts that the tribes get way more than the non-tribals

What it says to me and any other quick thinking individual who has monitored this fishery for the past 35 or so years is exactly that. Catch large numbers of hatchery salmon. And at the same time leave harmless the endangered species and protected species. Again large numbers of hatchery fish are left on the table after sport efforts to remove them have been exhausted. Case in point. the Willamette experienced large returns of hatchery salmon this spring. Sports caught their two fish limits over and over and quit fishing long before the fish quit coming. And the season and opportunity never closed. A neighbor of mine who is a very good salmon fisherman filled two hatchery tags and boated over 50 salmon. Other boats reported boating over 50 fish. Not guides either. Now I ask you again, How many damn fish can you eat? The reason we need to get those fish out of the river is to save wild fish. I'm not opposed to commercial fishing but I hate gillnets and what they do unintentionally to the wild resource.

POSA is coming! Be very afraid!

Boater,

In Oregon the state employees are legally bound to consider and support commercial fishing interests. It made financial and political sense when the laws were written, when there were larger commercial harvests attainable and sports fishing was just a hobby. That is at least a big part of why the CCA sponsored bill was written to continue commercial harvest selectively, there was/is no other legal alternative. I don't speak for the CCA but try to follow all the various arguments as best I can.

I do not yet know the WA regulatory legal system to know what is enshrined in law or not. I missed that news release - is there a link?

check the rcw`s title 77

Might want to take out a calculator and figure out what % 8000 is out of 400000 before you think that removing the non tribal gillnets is going to have a huge impact on recovering the spring salmon..

For some, this idea seems a little hard to grasp...but the math is easy, so I'll explain it for the fortieth time.

Assume that the gillnets they currently use have a 30% release mortality.

With the newer gear, if they knock that release mortality down to 5%, they will then fish long enough to catch SIX TIMES AS MANY WILD FISH, resulting in the EXACT SAME AMOUNT OF DEAD ESA SALMON...and much longer commercial seasons with many more hatchery fish harvested.

If you think that is good for fish or fishing, I've got a bridge to sell you, too.

Fish on...

Todd

sorry to tell you this but in order to do that we need to install weirs

And I suppose you are assuming that hasn't been considered?