Angle This: "Holy Smokes!! 18,202 over the dam in one day, and two days before closure? What is WRONG with this picture? This makes me sick... I didn't even get one springer this year in spite of spending WAY too much money on the effort.

If big counts continue even a couple more days, I think we should organize some kind of protest... blanket ODFW with emails, letters, fax bombs, whatever it takes to get the overpaid underskilled state leaches off their butts and reopen OUR river! Maybe passive resistance...I wonder what the state would do if a 500 boat strong fleet launched from every ramp east of Portland, showed up at Bonneville and started hammering fish? They could only ticket a small portion of the fleet, and if everyone chipped in equally to pay the fines, we'd all spend less than we did on the day's fuel, let alone our seasonal contributions to the state and related industries. These same bozos extended the commercial season, and allow the natives to fish in an extremely efficent and terribly destructive manner. Maybe we should publicly burn a scalped likeness of Bill Monroe.

As the segment of the population which contributes the bulk of the funds to keep the river healthy, it's about time we started exerting the lion's share of the control and decision making. Who is the government anyway? ...they are supposed to be US!...except in Oregon, for some crazy pathetic reason...something to think about."
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Angle T', we are all with you in the unfair "allocation frustration"! But allow me to alert you that it is not the ODWF that is responsible for cutting us sportfishers off early from the still abundant Columbia springers. It is the Col. Tribal Fish Commission with help from the NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service). In fact the states of Oregon and Washington have gone to bat for us sportfishers over these issues, most strongly in the form of a filed lawsuit against that "unfair pair" to even get us a small quota season. (Read the Bill Monroe threads here on Piscatorial and also on ifish for more details). I still think it's a good idea to send letters to the ODFW and WDFW to lend them more ammunition in negotiations on our behalf. But it is even more important to send these letters to state Congressmen and the NMFS. ... Also, friend Jellyhead reply posted to that thread on ifish calling for a protest 'fish in'. He correctly said we can troll Warts for walleye, if we release springers caught. For more effect, I think it would be a good idea to put protest signs on both sides of our boats and fish lures without hooks on them. When the gammies with a hard one runs up ready to lay some tickets on guys, reel in your hookless Wart or Kwikie and tell them you are tuning them to dive straight, while out supporting a worthy protest. It would be good to camcorder film them turn red in anger, and not be able to harrass us on cam. Although some of them might just be right on with our cause. ~~~ Anyone who is also a member of ifish, I'd really appreciate if you would copy and paste this post of mine to Angle This' thread on the ifish BB. Thanks much. - RT