There is another group of Sports-fishers that you guys can join and that is the one I am in....Puget Sound Anglers.
I support BAN as does our club, but even though I can not believe that TU can be thinking this way, I still think that any organization of sporties is good for the the benefit of getting the "word" to the general population of non fishers.
Keep on getting the message out to sign the initiative to ensure that at least the people of Washington will get to vote on the matter.
It is a NO-BRAINER....SUPPORT BAN!!!!!

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Steve Ng....The FishNg1
99 F-350 4x4 SD, 18ft Alumaweld Formula Vee Sled, 115 Yamaha.

The letter I received from TU pissed me off, but having the power to vote within our chapters on the BAN issue helps. I don't care whose political toes get steeped on, the fact is no nets, more fish return. Net bans have proven to work in both Florida and The Northeast. The Nets are only one spoke in the wheel, but you have got to start somewhere. The thing I hate to see is the different sport fishing groups divided on this issue. We loose a lot of power divided.

Went to the Sky Valley TU chapter meeting last night to hear Bill Robinson speak, who is one of the signers of the letter and is Exec Director of the Washington Council. I asked some pretty direct questions, as did Rod Bush.

When I asked why TU hadn't participated to recraft the BAN initiative if it's so poorly written, his response was that PSA didn't invite anyone to help write it and the thing was a done deal and in the public eye when TU found out about it. I raised the point that I would've felt a whole lot better about TU's stand on BAN if they had proposed an alternative initiative rather than just being critical. I asked why they hadn't put one together, and his response was "I don't know". I made a statement that it seemed time was ripe given the focus and emotion in the media on salmon/water issues as well as the flood of money that's starting to come and asked why more visible and stronger stances weren't being taken. My point was that staying in the middle ground may get you lots of friends and allies but doesn't necessarily create change. I got a very strong sense that the leadership of Washington TU seems somewhat defeated and to not have the energy, focus and time to put up alternatives be more vocal on overall fishing issues.

His response was that it's very, very difficult to unite all the various factions to work together on issues and that united, there's a lot more power than one organization trying to be the louder voice. According to Bill, the climate has changed and turned against the recreational fisher. There are not a lot of reporters writing positive recreational fishing articles in the media. The 1997 Salmon and Steelhead study completed by the WDFW showed that the numbers of Chinook caught by recreational fishers were almost double those of the commercial fishers. (We can argue the numbers, but that's what was turned in.) In 1990, approximately 500,000 punch cards were sold and in 1998, the number had dropped to 280,000 because people are fishing elsewhere and switching to other species.

Bill's main premise seemed to be that if BAN passes, it will only benefit the tribes. According to him, if non-treaty fish aren't being harvested recreationally, the tribes will go after a bigger chunk of the fish to get volume, if not price. Bill says that BAN results in a zero sum game and that the same number of fish will continue to be caught. When pressed by another audience member to explain how more fish going into rivers automatically means more tribal catch up to double their current numbers, I didn't feel a really satisfactory response was given. Maybe someone here can explain further?

There was a lot of very interesting historical information given about 640, tribal fishing practices, current legislation, etc. The meeting ran pretty late. While I appreciate Bill's time and explanations, I came away feeling as if I want TU to be more of an advocate for the recreational fisher and that if current leadership is too tired to be more vocal, then maybe it's time to either change leadership or create some new entity/coop among all the fishing groups that could fit that description. Recreational fishers need a champion.

The Rainshadow Chapter of TU, Olympic Peninsula voted last night to support the BAN ALL NETS initiative. The discussion was heated at times but we managed to get through the issue with out any major bad feelings at the end. The vote was close and quite a few people remained neutral. When it came down to It, It was hard to argue that the fish would not benefit from removing the nets.
The thing our chapter all agreed on is that this is only the first step to restoring the runs, and by backing ban we should be committing to continuing onto dealing with all the aspects of the issue. No Kill on all wild Salmon and Steelhead in the whole state?
Raise the escapement numbers (double)? Moratorium on all fishing for a set time?
We need to keep going, The removal of the nets alone will not save the fish.

I'm afraid that the TU state leadership is spread far too thin, what with all the salmonid issues around Washington (and region,like US/Canada, No. of Falcon, dams, ESA, etc.) with only one full-time staffer. I wish I had Bill's energy!
Anyway, my compliments on the last two posts, Wheeler and Joe. Good, objective reporting!