The gillneters just finished their second 24 hour opening in the bay. I watched a number of boats unload their catch of kings and coho.I was shocked at the number of unmarked coho that were being unloaded and sold to the fishbuyer. Sportmans must use barbless hooks and release unmarked silvers or risk fines, loss of gear, and possibly jailtime, while the commericals get paid for the same fish. WHOA HERE!!! If the net ban ever again gets on the ballot, I will surely vote in favor of it. Am I in the minority on this???

I voted against nets on the last two trys and will continue to do so. ESA listing won't do much good if the threatened an endangered fish end up on the docks for sale instead of spawning.........sully

Hohman,

I think this is how WDFW sees it (for better or worse):

The number of days open to gillnetters is small compared to the number of days the bay is open to the sporties. When allocations are figured for each group, a certain percentage of wild fish are figured in to the total catch. They deem a small harvest of wild fish as acceptable. The question then becomes.....who gets them?

Because the sporties have a more liberal season and have the ability to fish selectively, they reserve the incidental take of wild fish for the commercial boys.

Yes, there are all kinds of valid arguments against this aproach by WDFW but that's the way it is for now.

Just my take on it. Also have a biologist friend who concurs that this is how it's being done right now.

Everybody wonders why the commercials are always politically favored over the sporties. I know that there are some under-the-table payoffs being made. Cash talks and B.S. walks. If every sportsman in the state pitched in a Benny($100) apiece then we could bribe the politicians into banning nets or letting us overharvest our wild salmonid stocks. The hydroelectic companies have billions to bribe anybody they need and believe me, they payoff everybody with our electric bill payments. This is how big business works. C'mon, e don't live in a world where everybody follows the rules. If commercials don't fish, they don't make money. It's nothing for them to throw in a few grand here and a few grand there to grease the palms of our fine politicians. We need some mega-rich sporties to start bribing politicians, wildlife officials, etc. and we will get away with anything like the commercials do. I am directing these comments at non-tribal commercials. The tribes are fishing under treaties allowing plenty of harvest w/o having to bribe politicians.

My college professor explained something in a Pacific N.W. Native American History class I took recently and it goes a little somethin' like this:

The state was ordered, or strongly advised to buy back one third of all commercial licenses way back in the 70's. What happened with that, you ask? Well, they didn't buy back s*** and ended up selling even more commercial licenses. Several hundred more if I remember right. I'm sure this backasswards reasoning by our fine fisheries people had something to do with a little bribe here and a little "donation" there.

It all boils down to the fact that the state doesn't pay WDFW officials jack snot! The WDFW is probably eager to make whatever extra money they can by changing regulations to favor commercials.

Sorry for all these harsh accusations but it is time people realize what really goes on out there in the real world.

Life is short...fish hard!!!