Everyone keep the good thoughts coming. But I'm just wondering if we sportsmen just don't get it as far as the Native Americans go. When we talk about buy out of their gillnets do we understand the insult? Would we sport fishermen except a buy out from Native Americans of our liscence to cast a fly or bounce some lead for steelhead? Money is not the issue here or if it is it's secondary. Don't know if any of you know the issues in Hawaii with Native Hawaiians or not but asking the Native Americans for a buy out would be like telling a Native Hawaiian that we the tourist board of Hawaii will give you money to stay off the Pacific Ocean because the tourist want to use more of it for tourist purposes. Native Americans want to be on their river just as we sportsmen want to be on the river. Native Americans fish with gillnets as we fish with grafite rods. Native Americans used to fish with traps and dip nets we sportsmen used to fish with cane poles. Why would a Native American want to go back to a dip net when they can use something that catches more fish. We sportsmen say because it's destroying our chances of catching fish, the state and indisn biologists say they can catch this many without hurting the run. Why as a Native American would you care what a sportsman wants? The sportsman here is sort of like the tourist is in Hawaii always *****ing wanting to change the local ways.
I guess what my rambling is about here is that we will never be sucsessful changing Native American ways if we think only about our sportsmens wants and needs.