Come on Dogfish, do you really think that those of us that put in long hours getting signatures and donating time and money to the BAN initiative are going to lie down and listen to some of your retoric about the poor commercial boys. I will let a few other members chime in on some of your comments, but come on now.....who do you think is driving the economy in Westport as we speak......sportsfishing dollars! It is great to see the ocean alive once again with abundant salmon, and charters fishing for them, as well as the sporties. Okay, lets all net the hell out of them and destroy the runs so we can stop this fishery, and lets not use the old "Oh BAN would not have impacted the Indians" sob story, you know that is another issue.
I myself do not entirely disagree with commercial fishing, and if one would check the records you would find my name as a past holder of such, but it must be managed in a non-biased and proper manner. I don't think that is how it is always done now. If you have been to Westport lately, you would have noticed that most of the commercial trollers have been doing their thing about 12 miles out, right alongside the charters and sportboats......and peacefully at that.
The BAN iniative might have had a few flaws, but it would have been a step in the right direction. As for herring, it would have still been allowed to have been harvested as bait and guess what, even though I am a moocher by heart, I can troll an apex, a plug or other hardware with great success for salmon. And if you have a strong arm, my jigging stick with the old "dart" is great fun too! And then there is always the old herring jig that is always rigged on my old ambassadeur setup!
Sorry for all the ranting, but my heart started pumping hard when I read your post and I just couldn't resist the reply.....and yes I did note that you voted for 696.....if we did it wrong the first time lets do it again and do it correctly. If they can pass those sorry trapping and cougar iniatives, why can't we see the light when it comes to Salmon and Steelhead?