HH, I raised a very loud ruckus last spring and last fall (when the decisions were ready to come down for the Columbia springer allocations). It was done on these fishing BB's and elsewhere that I pleaded for a letter writing campaign to our congressmen and state gov.s to help us sportfishers get a fair share. It met with a very small amount of sportfisher effort. I did get a letter back from Oregon Senator Gordon Smith, that I posted on the BB's, indicating he would personally see that we got a fair shake from the NMFS vs NW States negotiations. Ya, right . And some Washington members who took the time to write their reps got generic politically neutral letters back from Governor Locke and one of the lady Senators, amounting to nothing. The Indians wound up with a 13% ESA fishing impact on the springers, the commercial netters got a 1.1% ESA impact, and us sportsman (that Senator Smith insured me he would see get a fair share) got 0.9%! The strongest 'voice' we have going for us is NSIA (Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association). They have put up the dollars to hire a couple DC lobbyists. But they are losing the battle. At this point I kind of like your idea of "The Million Fishermen March" on the Whitehouse. The only problem is that you would be very hardpressed to get even 100 of these appethtic sportfishers to a local rally - as I tried hard to do last spring in Cascade Locks. For every guy trying hard to get us somewhere there are 500 lazy guys that would rather complain and then do absolutely nothing that requires some effort. Cynical? Perhaps; but historically proven - so far. If we had gotten a couple thousand letters instead of a paltry few, that would have likely made a difference. But that seems to tough for most guys to take a few minutes to do. They reap what the sow! ... How about going back to the haybales and such into the nets, at least after they have gone over their far bigger quotas they somehow got, despite the 50/50 Treaty and Fed Court rulings? Any other ideas out there? ....

Also, anyone know about the numbers of late returning Wind fish? Thanks.

RT