Let's hear your perfect plan for saving wild fish, or should only the WSC be held to such high standards?

At least Plunker had a foundation for his argument. I think his foundation is flawed, but he has obviously looked at it closely.

Why is it that if things don't go your way, the other side is "shoving it down your throats"? If these changes are made, it will be because many people believe it is best for the fish, not because they are looking to shove anything down anybody's throat. In contrast, do you feel the state is shoving C&K regs down the throats of the majority of the anglers, who favor C&R? That's just a weak catch phrase used by those whose side didn't win, or wasn't chosen.

[ 11-14-2001: Message edited by: dogsalmon ]

I think we try to learn from other states. Unfortunatly we can't just learn and then act on it.

Unlike anywhere else in the country, nearly every fishery in this state is co-managed by a government that we have no representation in, we do not vote for, and does not answer to us. Everything sportfishers want do do in the state of Washington has to be based on a educated guess of what the reaction of this government is going to be.

To confuse matters for you, what I just wrote is simplified. When I talk about a government, I am actually talking about a network of small governments, connected, and yet each able to go their own way. We have no representation in any of them.

Thanks to everyone who has participated in this thread. I'm impressed that a thread of this length on an issue this controversial has maintained a civil attitude. Mostly

I think we've pretty much beat this one down to the ground, though, and it's starting to get a bit repetitive. I'll forego anymore of my lengthy diatribes, and would prefer to move any further discussion into an e-mail correspondence.

My e-mail is c_n_r_nates@hotmail.com and my homepage is Wild Steelhead Coalition.

I'll still check on this thread and will respond or comment briefly, but I think this thread has run its course. Feel free to hit me with an e-mail. Better yet, is there any better spot to discuss fish issues than a riverbank? I'm guessing this rain will bring the first big push of winter runs!! You can't have too many fishing partners, so if anyone wants to talk it up face to face, look me up.

Thanks, again, everyone.

Fish on...

I know this is a dumb reason, but here's what put me over the top and made me change my mind.

It streamlines the regs.

Also, 66% may say they support it, but after looking at the data, it doesn't look like that many are releasing fish on some of the rivers.

[ 12-02-2001: Message edited by: AuntyM ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marty:

Since hatchery fish are genetically the same as the wild fish according to the Latest ruling in court are you prepared to release all your fish considered wild? THAT MEANS ALL FISH!! If you want a fish to eat you will have to purchase it from the tribe. Not a deal or legislation I can live with.
g)

---

Rich so why doesn't the Hoh tribe net more days with the extra fish forcast to return. The ones who take advantage of the situation is the Quillayute tribe. If more fish are coming won't they just get more fish on there regular days (yes).
The reason I don't support your good intended rule change is the Quillayute tribal practices on the fishery.
We all want more fish in the river. I just don't agree with the blanket management practices this rule changes implies.
A bleeding fish will die even if it is released. Catch and Release is not a holy grail just a good guideline practiced by ethical fishermen. I would prefer to harvest a fish in this instance....MY CHOICE

Dogsalmon,

This is not about making sure you get to make your own decisions. It's not about cnr guys against cnk guys, in spite of what several people on this thread have said.

It's about two competing management schemes for steelhead, one that has proven to not work and one that is scientifically, economically, and politically much more likely to help steelhead in perpetuity.

The one that doesn't work is the current MSY model. Gibbons has said that the current environmental conditions "overwhelmed" the safeguards within MSY. Not enough fish returned to many rivers in 2001 to even support a cnr season, much less a harvest season. Many factors affected that eventuality, like habitat, weather, and ocean conditions. Another one that affected it was that sportsmen were intentionally KILLING the adults from that broodstock year.

Again: the 2001 runs were too small to fish for, and sportsmen were killing the adults that produced that small run.

How hard is that to understand?

You can comment that "healthy" rivers should still have harvest. In 1999, the entire Skagit, Stillaguamish, and Snohomish River systems were deemed "healthy" enough to harvest wild fish. Two years later, not even enough to have a cnr season.

Can anyone really with a straight face say that the fish they killed in those rivers weren't important to the viability of those runs? Thankfully this year's pre-season estimates put the Skagit at about 80% escapement, but the Snohomish and Stillaguamish systems are around 50%.

That means even the Skagit is 20% short of what is necessary to have a "healthy" run. The other two are woefully short.

Marty,

All of the points that you just made, except maybe one, have all been made above. They're not any more defendable now.

It's clear why we need cnr even if more than 60% of the fishermen practice it voluntarily already. It's because every fish is important. When the management scheme we use now is designed to live on the edge, a few extra fish can make the difference between getting escapement or not. A lot killed, or none killed, can have much more significant effects.

Why didn't they shut down the entire river systems for the entire season? Even easier. So that people could harvest the hatchery fish. There's nothing secret or underhanded about that.

That's why they closed at the end of February, because there weren't many hatchery fish left by that point. No hatchery fish, no fishing.

Streamlining the regs, while far from the most important reason for adopting the proposal, is indeed a viable reason. Besides the ease of knowing the regs of where you're fishing, it also may cut some of the fat out of WDFW bureaucrats who are spending our tax dollars to study, argue about, then abandon all science and adopt a political reason to decide how many fish we should kill this year.

The reference to the legal decision in Oregon is exactly what Rich referred to it as, which is almost entirely irrelevant. First, it has absolutely no legal application here, at least at this point. Second, even if it did, the hatchery steelhead in Washington streams are not even close genetically to their wild brethren. Chambers Creek winter runs and Skamania summer runs are very distinct from the wild fish in all of our streams, except for the Washougal summer runs that produced the Skamania hatchery fish.

The assertion that you would have to buy a tribally caught fish to ever eat one is totally bogus. Our hatchery steelhead will not ever be under the umbrella of the ESA, and you'll always be able to catch them if there isn't too much impact on wild, endangered fish in the same river (like there has been on the Wenatchee and Methow hatchery fish).

No one is trying to "sweep this under the rug", and several times above the foregone opportunity fears have been dealt with. For years the state has been saying "foregone opportunity" like some kind of a voodoo talisman, having little idea what it means or how it works, if at all, just to scare people into trusting them that MSY is all good. Don't buy into it.

If anyone needs to see how foregone opportunity works, read the previous posts in this thread.

Marty, I know you were here before the Boldt decision, and I know you have years of experience with steelhead issues. However, do you remember why the Boldt decision came about?

It came about because non-tribal fishermen were angry that 3% of the population was catching 6-7% of the fish, and in nets no less. Greed, racism, and vigilante "justice" lead to the tribes taking it to court.

The final answer: Now the tribes have half. Not six or seven percent. Fifty percent. Over ten times what non-tribal folks were complaining about before the trial. I'm glad I was too young to be part of that period of Washington State history, having only been born about 32 years ago. I'm glad because I don't want that kind of unbridled hate and greed to be associated with myself.

If you know what one court ruling can do, then how about not justifying the need to kill fish with the same justification that lead to the Boldt decision: "If the Indians are gonna kill 'em, then I'm gonna kill all the fish I can, too. Besides, that's the way I've always done it and, by God, that's the way I'm always gonna do it."

The same justification can be used by commercial salmon fishermen, or old-growth loggers, or strip miners, or any other way of life that just flat out doesn't work anymore.

PETA? Re-read Plunker's "conspiracy theory" stuff above in this thread. It doesn't make any more sense here than it did up there.

You are correct that there is an associated mortality with cnr, with numbers varying from less than 1% to over 10%. Most scientists have accepted that it's mostly 3-7%. It can't be anymore obvious that there is 100% mortality from rocks, sticks, and fillet knives coming into contact with a steelhead's head.

These arguments, and many more, essentially say that we need to kill them to save them, or to save our opportunity to fish for them. They're just circular arguments that are used to defend the need to kill wild steelhead, whether it be for greed, to spite the Indians, to enhance the experience, or whatever else.

Tridub,

This is not intended to scare you, nor is it intended to say that it's fair or that any of us should like it.

The tribes have a federally protected right to fish for salmon and steelhead. Non-tribal fishermen, be they commercial or sport, have a state granted privelege. I don't like it, either, but it is an absolute fact, and complaining about it or fearing it will not change it. Buying a license allows you to exercise that privilege.

The best thing to do is to work to protect and increase the fish runs so that our "privilege" will not be revoked (as it has been on Puget Sound Rivers last spring and this upcoming spring).

Remember, all of our streams were "healthy" enough to support harvest of almost everything at one time. Many now don't support any harvest of anything. Some are only able to support selective hatchery fisheries. Some, today, can support harvest of wild fish.

All of them could at one time. No matter how many possible factors there are that changed that, one of them is overfishing. And no matter how many factors there are, this is one we have some control over.

I look forward to the possibility, indeed probability, that after February we will have removed the non-tribal direct wild steelhead harvest from the list of factors that has sent almost every river in our state beyond the line where harvest is "safe".

It will only happen one factor at a time, and this is a no-brainer, easy to do, that also gives us as sportsfishers the credibility to complain about other's actions.

Why do we all chuckle when the tribes claim to be the stewards of wild fish? Because they string nets across rivers and kill them. Do you think anyone believes that we have any more credibility than they do?

Fish on...

Todd.

And you did say "yet" on the court decision on genetics .

On the economic benefits of this ruling you might want to ask how Catch and Release seasons vs kill seasons effect SEKIU. I guess it will be ok to do the same to Forks businesses.

[ 12-03-2001: Message edited by: Marty ]

[ 12-03-2001: Message edited by: dogsalmon ]

[ 12-03-2001: Message edited by: dogsalmon ]

The guy who wrote that is a joke.

Steelhead run statistics

I think ol'Sparkster maybe pimping the Goddess!!!!!

This thread has been going on for a month now, and has 115 posts by at least twenty different authors.

In the first 90 or 95 posts almost everything posted, no matter where your opinion lies on this issue, had at least some attempt to be civil and have some sort of facts to back up opinions.

There were only a couple of exceptions.

In the last twenty or so posts this has turned into a joke that reminds me of a different BB where this type of "debate" is the rule, rather than the exception.

I feel that this shouldn't be happening on a board of this quality, and I hope that Marty would agree with me. I also hope that the folks who originally made this a productive thread for the interchange of ideas, opinions, and facts would agree, too.

Stupid name calling and "I think" or "I want" declarations that are totally emotional and have no basis in fact do nothing but degrade what was a useful tool into a pissing match.

I've made a response to most all of the legit comments or questions that I have information about, and I'll continue to do so, in spite of the fact that there haven't been many of those in the last several posts.

Dogsalmon,

If no one fished during the months that there are native fish in the river, the river would be closed year round. There are native steelhead in most larger systems 365 days per year.

Marty,

I don't think anyone (at least not me) said that rivers like those in the Quillayute system are in immediate trouble.

My main point on that issue has been that there were dozens of "healthy" rivers just a few decades ago. Then, less and less "healthy" rivers each year, down to the very small amount that we have now.

Among the many factors that adversely impact wild steelhead, direct harvest is one that is easy to control (I say control, not stop, because there are many ingrates who will continue to kill them even if the regulation proposal is adopted). As noted above several times, less fish die, more fish spawn, and sportsmen gain the necessary political credibility to complain about the others by cleaning our own house up first.

That's about it for now...

Fish on...

As a longtime resident of WA who had to move for emergency family reasons I can sort of see your POV about folks from around the world wanting to cast their vote in favor of C&R for wild steelhead... BUT on the other hand if sport fishermen everywhere have no say in the welfare of wild American steelhead just because of their license plates then why is everyone without NY license plates acting like we have the right/privilege/whatever to be pissed about our brothers and sisters in the WTC and the Pentagon? Because we do.

My point is that wild steelhead don't belong to you or I or any state government or human entity, they belong to the river and if we care about them well that's up to us. Your concerns in similar matters would be greatly appreciated.