Thanks for your effort and ideas here Goose! There are more important reasons than many of us realize to stop the increase in snagging any way we can. Get in their faces and get them on camcorders with the help of buddies - but don't let the enemies of sportfishing such as PETA or Indians to get hold of the snagging film; take them to enforcement authorites. Also, write the WDFW/ODFW and your state reps to dramatically increase snagging fines. This will not only be a better deterent, there will still be enough stupid selfish scumbags caught and fined heavily so that the increased revenue will pay for more enforcement officers afield!. Here is my post from a similar thread on ifish:

Snagging must be thwarted any way we can. Period! The excess fish are not destined to be taken by the states and buried somewhere; where did you get that idea fishbait? It would be much better to have the excess fish sold to pet food companies to generate much needed dept. revenues, and the brats not caught or making it back into the hatchery ponds become important stream nutrients for native and hatchery fry and smolts, than to allow or ignore snagging!!! The last thing we want to do is promote more adult lowlife snaggers and future generations of snaggers by turning our backs on them, or be accepting of it! Because that is definitely what is happening - growing numbers of snaggers getting away with it; that will be out there, sometimes teaching their kids this, snagging away when the cycle of fish runs get back to low returns again. I just can not see any way to rationalize allowing butt snaggers, regardless of the abundance of fish for awhile. No way! I would also much rather see the Indians get dip netted excess hatchery fish than allow snagging. The Treaties and the Federal Court review cases have mandated that if one group between the Indians and non-Indians get more fish in a given year then the other group is to get more opportunity the following year. The Indians, NMFS, and the wussies in Washington D.C. have pretty much ignored this legal mandate, just as they have the mandated 50/50 split of fish. But all these fish taken by the Indians will someday come around to be weighed in on how the rules will be interpreted and even voted on in the future. DON'T allow snagging, and snaggers on news station film, to hurt the sportfisher's causes with such negative images for the general and non-fishing public to see before elections!!!!! Wake up! Amen.

IS IT TIME FOR PROPERLY PLANNED VIGILANTE ACTION?

Maybe it's time to get after this. I am to the point of wanting to do a legal viglante 'posse' task force with about a dozen of us doing 'stings' in snagging hot spots. It is legal to carry a handgun while fishing, as well as a deterent sheathed knife on your belt. We can all go legally armed with fishing rods in hand together, and then after observing and filming snagging we then go down and very nicely explain that "This snagging is not just illegal. It is a major threat to our sportfishing rights. Like having rivers closed and PETA efforts to close down all fishing; as well as being against the law". We can say it aloud and also hand out flyers with this message printed on them. With a large posse there even the hardest core snaggers are going to get the message that they are in immediate or eventual trouble - both individually and for keeping rivers open. Also tell them that they have been filmed and their license plate numbers taken to be turned into authorities, and that they will be targeted by cops and vigilantes if they continue to snag. This will widely get around to snaggers very quickly. And they aren't about to add fighting to their snagging law breaking - but we'd be prepared to appropriately handle that anyway. ... This needs to be thwarted soon!!!

[ 09-10-2001: Message edited by: RT 1 ]