As posted by 'flytyer' at The Flyfishing Forum...some very excellent info


Folks,

Fred suggested I provide some further information to you in a private message he sent to me. Fred, you were right, the info needed to be placed herein for the rest of the board to see.

That out of the way here goes.

I am very familiar with the Skagit River system tribes and how they view the Samish Tribe filing for inclusion in the U.S. v. Washington case that produced the infamous Bolt Decesion. The three tribes with fishing rights on the Skagit (Swinomish, Upper Skagit, and Saud-Suiattle Tribes) are opposed to having the Samish Tribe be granted fishing rights. The Samish Tribe, along with the Snoqualmie (which has regained federal recognition) and Snohomish Tribes (which has not regained fedreal recognition yet) were not included in the Bolt decision because they were not parties to the case that brought it about, not were they federally recognized at the time of the decision either due to having lost their federal recognition.

The Skagit tribes along with the other Point Elliot Treaty Tribes (This is important because these are the tribes that were granted the 50% of harvest and the right to fish commercially for steelhead.) are the tribes that Judge Bolt gave the absolute right to net the rivers and take 50% of the harvest. All of these tribes have kept all of the depositions, testimony, expert anthropologist documents, etc. related to the case just in case one of the other non-treaty fishing tribes was re-instated as rederally recognized. In short, they do not want or desire to have another tribe allowed in on the tribal net fishing for salmon and steehlhead. Also, they are very concerned about one of the three tribes mentioned above getting re-recognized and getting the federal court to re-open or re-visit the case from which the Bolt decision came.

They are concerned about the Bolt decision being altered to possibly remove steelhead as food fish (there is very scant historical evidence that steelhead were used as food fish by the tribes, that is why the tribes insist on calling steelhead "steelhead salmon". Unfortunately, at about the same time that this case was working its way through the Federal District Cout in Seattle, steelhead, cutthroat, golden trout,
and rainbow trout were reclasified into the same genus (or family) as pacific salmon. This allowed them to simply add steelhead to the food fish category very easily. Since they were of same genus as pacific salmon, and called steelhead salmon by the tribal attorneys, they were included in Judge Bolt's decision as steelhead salmon. This is why a re-opening or re-visiting of the case could mean that steelhead would be removed from the harvest allocation. And steelhead get a very good price on the commercial market, musch better than pacific salmon.

The other thing they are concerned about is the 50% of the harvest allocation could be reduced to 25% or less. And there is the possibility that the court will simply rule that the state of Washington gets to set seasons and limits on the number of fish a particular tribe may catch with its nets. None of the above is wanted by the tribes currently covered by the Bolt decision.

At the same time, they do not want to allow by agreement (which would avoid re-opening the case with the possibility that the ruling will be changed in a manner that is less favorable to the tribes) the non-treaty fishing tribes in on the fisheries. Theri hope is that the court will not allow the Samish to have the case re-opened. However, the Samish has been successful in getting the court to consider their petition to be heard for declaration as a treaty fishing tribe, which is the first step in getting the Bolt decision re-visited.

Two of the Skagit tribes as well as most of the other treaty fishing tribes in Western Washington have spend rather large sums of money both last year and this year buying coho and chum from their respective tribal fishermen, and there are not very many of them anymore due to the low or non-existent price for river salmon. The tribes have been paying their fishermen $1.00/fish gutted and head removed, and the fishermen have been selling the roe to an imitation cavier maker. One of the Skagit tribes spent nearly $30,000.00 last year doing this. The Western Washington tribes have been giving many of the fish to food banks and homeless or domestic violence centers as a way to get rid of the fish. Of course the tribes then get PSA's from the local news outlets about their humanitarian feeding efforts of non-tribal members in their communities and counties.

The real reason they are buying the fish from the fishermen is so that the few tribal members who still fish continue to do so. They are concerned that if no one fishes, it will place their claims to 50% of the harvest in jeopardy if they case gets re-opened. At this time, there is zero market for river salmon and the only reason that there are still some tribal fishers netting the river for salmon is that between the price they get for the roe and the $1.00/fish they get from the tribes, they make some money.

This action by the Samish can well prove to be the beginning of the end of the 50% of harvest of salmon and steelhead "salmln" by the fishing treaty tribes in Washington.



Given that the papers have given us no hope, flytyer is confident changes could come up about...for our benefit...the biggest one being that steelhead would no longer be a foodfish...that would be a grand victory for the greatest fish that swims!!