Eric

Thanks for your quick reply!

What you just told us sounds just like what I and others have suspicion. This kind of sounds like the "deal" that a landowner did on the Cowlitz when he sold a fishing easement to WDFW and then some years later the land owner locked everyone out except for a few of his "good old buddies".

If this is really true of what has happen on the Willapa, fishermen should be outraged! If they (the land owners) are now being allowed to post the land that was agreed to be left open, then things need to change and change fast. I know that the Willapa is a smaller river, but there are lots of them "smaller rivers" out there that guys are now floating on in tubes/rafts. I think that the tube/rafts are the thing of the future for fishing on small rivers that are continually being cut off to the public by a few greedy land owners, who only want to allow their buddies access to fish on.

Let's not forget, the rivers in our state are public, and the public must not allow private groups of land owners to block off every way of access to them. Crossing over a land owner's property is one thing, but preventing the public access on the water to harvest "state" hatchery fish is a whole different story (yes, the Willapa has state hatcheries on it). If fishermen do not turn this kind of fish management (and special deals) around then they probably deserve what they get!

Fishermen should be outraged if this is true. If it is true, I can thing of no better place or way then this forum to begin reversing this act.

What are the members on this board willing to do to keep your waterways open to fishing? Let's hear what you are willing to do fishermen... If anything at all!



Cowlitzfisherman