Hears another thought! I hear a lot about the need not to open the chinook fishery on the Cowlitz…right? So WDFW closed the Cowlitz early this year to "protect" the Cowlitz chinook runs because of the low numbers that were projected to return. So, OK, we can live with that one, but stop and think about it for a minute. Cowlitz spring chinooks are among the very first to return each year into the Columbia. WDFW thinks nothing about allowing an early net fishery in the Columbia for chinook and sturgeon. Guest whose fish get hit the hardness? WDFW's concerns about "saving" our spring chinook runs are nothing more then a smoke screen. When it comes to fish management on the Cowlitz, think of commercial fishery! Watch what will happen this year when our coho return. You will be able to walk on the nets all the way across the Columbia!

And when it's all said and done, you will hear the fish managers say; "the run was not as strong as we thought it would be!" That way, they won't have to worry about the 80,000 projected coho returning to the rack at the Cowlitz, and trucking all those wasted fish up into the upper Cowlitz for natural production. God, if they did that, what would they do for there jobs at the Cowlitz Salmon Hatchery??? The game goes on and on!

Cowlitzfisherman,

Is the taste of the bait worth the sting of the hook?????