MONEY, and a lot of it! And good timing would help a lot, also.

1. A public information campaign that clearly articulates the adverse effects of gillnetting on public fisheries.

2. Possibly some modification of sportfishing practices and regulations. It's not very hard - and the commercial industry did it when the BAN initiative was on the ballot - to make sportfishermen appear as greedy citizens who just want to re-allocate all the harvestable salmon to themselves. And when I read the arguments that have often been advanced on this bulletin board, they often appear to be just that - an attempt to transfer the commercial catch into the sport catch. That doesn't do much for conservation, and the majority of the public has little sympathy for such apparent greed.

3. . . . and did I mention, MONEY? The commercial industry will spend a lot of the money it makes in Alaska to maintain the pathetic little chit that's left of the Washington State commercial salmon fishing welfare program, I mean, industry.

Actually, another good way to help rid the gillnet fishery is to cut back on the hatchery salmon programs that contribute most to these fisheries. WDFW either doesn't allow, or permits only the most minimal, gillnet fishing where mixed stocks of hatchery and wild fish congregate.

One more effective tool would be to undo the trade WDFW makes with Canada for the Fraser River sockeye fishery. WDFW trades your Puget Sound coho and chinook for Fraser River sockeye fishing in north Puget Sound. Recreational anglers catch very few Fraser sockey in Washington waters, yet they could catch some of those chinook and coho that are traded away. Give the Fraser sockeye back to the Canadians, and let those coho and chinook return to Washington.

These are tactics that would help squeeze away any of the pitiful remaining profit motive to gillnet in Washington. And if they lose money 3 years running, the IRS won't allow them to use it as a tax writeoff thereafter.

And focus on wild coho and chinook recovery. The healthiest foreseeable wild stocks will never support as many days gillnetting per week as hatchery stocks do. All this hatchery production just plays into the hands of perpetuating commercial fishing that is very much a cause of the fisheries problems to begin with.

Well, these are some of the things that could help make it happen.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.