Micropterus,

Do you usually throw sticks at every hornet's nest you see, also? You stirred up a good one with this topic. So what is snagging? Plainly put, it's one method of reducing a fish in the stream to a fish in possession. It happens to be illegal in WA state, but it wasn't always so, for salmon that is.

Fish are reduced to possession in a lot of ways. Gillnets, purse seines, fish wheels, reef nets, dip nets, long lines, and trolling lines are common, or once common commercial and subsistence fishing methods. I never saw it, but have often enough heard of farmers and others using pitchforks to gaff salmon and load onto wagons to haul to their fields as fertilizer. Most recreational fisheries have for many decades been limited to using a hook and line, and require the fish to be hooked in the mouth to indicate a "fair" catch. And some fish are snagged in a fin or elsewhere on their body, either accidently or deliberately. Those fish probably didn't feel any worse about their experience than any of the fish caught by the other methods.

Gsiegel,

Thanks for summarizing snagging as a societal/cultural problem. However, it looks like it's a problem for some people, but not others. Obviously, some see snagging as a positive opportunity. Sorry to be so picky, but I think snagging might be more accurately labled a cultural issue than a problem, and I'll get to that later in this post.

Fun5Acres,

You said "It's all about money, nothing else." I'd like to know how you know that. I'm pretty well acquainted with many folks over at WDFW, and I can get a lot of reasons from them as to why there are lots of surplus fish stacking up below hatcheries, which tends to facilitate snag fisheries. But money isn't on the list of reasons. What do you know that they don't or won't tell me?

RA3,

I like you on this BB, and I think I'd like you in person, but you're so predictable in your willingness to rush to judge those who don't share your values. Clearly, you have values, and they're pretty high ones regarding our fishery resources. And I think that's pretty good of you. But how can you know that anyone whose behavior is characterized by lessor values than yours is a lowlife? I sometimes wish I was so sure of my self. You know that ". . . snagging is wrong, period!" What does that mean? Is everything you don't agree with " . . . wrong, period!"? Ya' know, a dead fish is a dead fish is a dead fish, no matter how morally it was caught.

CFM presented an interesting perspective that I think gets closer to the heart of the snagging issue. He seems simply to acknowledge that not everyone who fishes subscribes to the same values regarding fishing.

Fishing has its roots in food procurement. At that level, any means of obtaining the fish would be ethical and unlikely to violate a society's or cultural values. Sport means different things to different people, and I think that's why some of the "lowlifes" that RA3 referred to can have a pretty good time, a sporting one, if you will, by going out to the local snag fishery and harvesting a few. Others, and that seems to include most of the regulars here, either were raised in or otherwise acquired values for a "sporting tradition" that has roots in a structured concept. The sporting ethic that most, but not everyone, shares has a lot of tradition in its roots that usually includes a reverence for the resource we pursue and a concept or rules of fair chase - which would be the fishing regulations for most of us. The sporting ethic or tradition that I identify with has its roots in England and western Europe, where a lot of our common laws and cultural attributes are from.

I think a lot of the conflict in a discussion of snagging stems from an assumption of a common definition of what is sporting and that we share the same values. Here are a couple examples that are a bit extreme, but should help illustrate my point. A couple years ago a lot of scarce, or even rare, spring chinook were gaffed or snagged from the Nooksack River. RA3 might rush to label the perpetrators as lowlifes (sorry RA3, flame me if you must), but it turns out they were Russian immigrants who saw the fish as a food source, probably not much differently than people in primitive societies would have, which happens to be a pretty common value accorded to fishing in many places in Russia. They just don't share the same value, and may have been ignorant of the law. Nonetheless, they most likely have no idea of the sporting ethic and tradition that many of us share.

Another example is about crabbing in north Puget Sound by SE Asians. I should apologize for picking on ethnic groups, as the examples are more extreme, but I think they better illustrate the point. In this instance, some of these folks have been busted repeatedly for keeping crabs of all sizes and sexes. So they have been informed of the law, but it is so much in conflict with the values of their culture where it only makes sense to keep all the crabs that you can use.

My point, if I have one, is that we cannot assume that everyone shares the same values. It goes beyond valuing the sporting ethic, and includes valuing respect for the law. I think it's pointless to judge and condemn those who choose to snag. It makes more sense to inform and educate those who are receptive to it . . . and issue citations to those who aren't, because those are the regulations. And the regulations make sense over all, but that's another thread.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.