Just looked into Dennis Dicksons web page. He reports that the Indians are netting the lower Skagit. Cant believe what is happening to our Steelhead and Salmon in this state. I think the Fish and Game boys have given up or dont care what happens. We need to do some house cleaning in the Fish and Game Department. What do you all think?

Start at the federal level. Get rid of the backstabbing Slade Gorton.

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Marty
www.steelheader.net
marty@steelheader.net

As Dennis said , AS long as sportfisherman are allowed to kill 3000 wild steelhead a year then why wouldn't the Indians want some of the action.
We Must stop the F&G dept from allowing the killing of all wild fish in the state by sportsmen. But that won't happen because the State believes that there are more sportsmen that want to kill a wild fish or two or three,etc, etc. than C&R sportsmen and you know the State is most likely right about that.

It doesn't matter if ALL the sportsmen c&r the tribes will still be NETTING them!!!!!!

P.S.You are right (down behind the five)!!!

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Tight Lines!!

This sounds like a tribe is just exerciseing thier tribal rights. This is why they sighned a treaty, so they could maintain thier culture and way of life. Wheather we like it or not the tribes gave up alot for the right to catch fish. I dont think the WDFW would let a net in the river if they had thier way. But yes it is a Fedral matter.
The WDFW has not won a court settlement for over 25 years against a state tribe and probably will not in the future. I think the WDFW does care a large majority spend thier weekends on the river like you and I.

Can't say if the tribes would stop fishing or not if sportsmen had to release all wild fish year round. I dought it, but that would give us far more moral ground to bitch about it.
As far as F&G guys go they are alright. But the fact of the matter is that F&G management need money to run the program. And if they made all Wild fish C&R year round they would have the silent majority of Steelhead fishermen in thier faces and a whole lot of employee and program cuts from that silent majority not buying liscenes anymore.
For most of us on this site we are C&R fishermen and women, but take a real good look around at all the folks you see on the river that plunker themselves down in some eddy, have the kids running all over the place and are just as clueless about what's going on with our wild fish as the city slicker that buys wild fish in the market.
It sure gets real depressing out there, but one day we will get it right.

Deja vu. Didn't we just have this conversation last week, and the week before? However, before we all go and get our shorts tied in a knot, how 'bout we try this one first: "Seek first to understand."

I fish the Skagit more than any river and have observed that the tribes there are usually responsible in exercising their treaty fisheries, so I wonder if anyone bothered to check and see what's going on. I talked to a biolgist that works there earlier this season, and he said the tribes' steelhead fishing effort was very low this year because the commercial buyers were offering record low prices, i.e., I heard as low as $0.10 per pound. Therefore, fishermen were only fishing and catching what they could sell in "over-the-bank" private sales to individuals who pay a higher price. That doesn't mean that there isn't any fishing going on now, but I do question whether there is a full fleet fishery at present.

Also, along about the beginning of spring each year, the Skagit tribes begin a weekly spring chinook test fishery, one day per week with just two nets fishing. That might be more gillnetting effort than you'd care to see, but it's nothing like a full fleet fishery that can put nearly 100 nets in the river at a given time. This test fishery is consistent with basic fish management methods to estimate run size, just like the state and Canada conduct test fishing to estimate the Fraser sockeye run size and many other fisheries in the state.

If you still want to bitch about the tribes' net fishing, consider this. WDFW has set the Skagit steelhead escapement goal at 10,000 fish under their MSH (maximum sustained harvest) policy. The tribes have the data to legally force driving that wild steelhead escapement goal down to about 3,500 or 4,000 spawners. You don't have to like it, but that is what the "best available data" (bad) have indicated. The tribes haven't forced that hand, last I heard. Instead, they set their harvestable steelhead number at 1/2 the expected return of hatchery steelhead, plus 1/2 of 2,000 wild steelhead. They take most of their catch from the earlier returning hatchery steelhead and exercise a token level fishery during the late season (like now). This works biologically by allowing the steelhead population to perform at the level the existing habitat is capable of. It doesn't maximize the number of steelhead available to you and me because they insist (and we both know that the law supports them on this) on taking a portion of the share of steelhead they are legally entitled to.

You could, should you choose, push this issue and end up with the tribes changing their steelhead fishery management such that there isn't a wild run worth fishing for, and guides like Mr. Dickson would have to close up shop and go home. I fished the Skagit when the run was only 4,000 steelhead, and the results ain't pretty. Some folks just don't know a good thing when they got it.

And if you think we can have a recreational fishery and no treaty fishing, then you missed the thread on this subject a week or so ago. Case law has already declared that treaty tribes may still fish after we have been regulated out of the steelhead and salmon fishery. The treaty tribes' fishing rights are superior to our fishing privileges. This isn't about fairness; it's about law.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

Seek first to understand? My understanding is that we sportsmen realy do not have a right to get on the Native Americans legal right to kill Native Fish when we our selves do the same. Until we change our ways I dought that Native Americans would even consider sitting down and talking about wild fish. And maybe the only way to change things is by sitting down and talking because they do nothing legaly wrong by netting and nothing anymore ethically wrong in killing wild fish than we do.
Is there anyone out there that can tell me why we sport fishermen NEED to kill wild Steelhead at all in this time of decline?

The tribes have been taking native fish since the begining!! Why would they want to stop now??? The Dungenes (sp) closed the 1st, but the tribe can still fish with rod and reel until the 15th of April. I know one who is doing very well. Seven to ten fish days and that is fishing two to three hours. He releases most of his fish. I would rather see them do that than NET!!! Oh, by the way they don't net the Dungenes!!

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Tight Lines!!