Quote:
Originally posted by RICH G:
Ill tell ya whats bogus!

Anybody who says that sport fishing does or has not played a role in the decline of wild salmon and steeelhead is full of it and dosent know his facts.

If you want proof just look at the graph on the WDFW site that shows the 20 year harvest both sport and native american. Or you can look at the catch records before 97 that gives both Sport and Native American harverst for each river system.

We were right up there with the netts. We may not play as big of a role now but we did then.


The WDFW's numbers are far from accurate. According to them, the sportsman caught over 60,000 sockey in Lake Washington last year in the 2 week season. In order for that number to be accurate, there would have had to be twice as many boats fishing as there were and they would all have to catch their limit every single day. This was far, far from the truth. Not only were their numbers screwed for the amount of boats that were fishing, but very few people were actually limiting. Boats with 4 people in them would catch 3 fish. A limit? Not even close. The state tries to be so politically correct that they won't tell the truth. One gillnet will kill more steelhead in one day than 100 sportsman. What the state does is assume everyone is catching and keeping their limit. Anybody who says that sportfishing has played a role in the decline of wild salmon and steelhead is full of it and doesn't know his facts. How can one person who is allowed to keep 2 fish (assuming he even hooks, let alone lands 2 fish) can have as much impact as a gillnet that catches many, many times that amound.