Think about this...

By being zippered lipped, how many times have people stopped using a river access area because they didn't even know that it existed? I have seen it happen time after time, and once people forget about an area, the land owners immediately start posting every old access point and start fencing them off.

Are we really doing ourselves any real big favors by keeping these areas zipped? Are we really, as a fishermen making our own problem even worse by not informing our fellow fishermen of the many smaller streams that don't get used or fished as much?

How many times have you waited a few seasons or years before going back to your favorite small zipper lip stream just to find that some new land owner has now blocked off your access that you had been using for years. Being zippered is costing us a lot more then you may think!

I can think of 2 perfect examples in which this can easily be seen. For one, look at what has happened to the Willapa. It was once intended to have large areas of public access; that is why WDFW had passed a rule that banned fishing from a floating device. They did not want boaters competing with the bank fishers. Now, 20 years later, there is almost no more public access for boaters or bankers and there is no more public bank access either. Again, you need not look any further then what the private land owners have already started to do at the mouth of the Toutle.

For over 30 years or better, people have always been able to park their cars along the Chapman Rd. area and have walked over the edge to fish the Cowlitz River. Just after the big run of Coho ended last year, when all the fishermen had left, the land owners got together and have posted the entire roadway area that the public had been using for 30 years. They even got the county to post no parking signs in front of their no-trespassing signs along the road way.

Being zipper lip will cost fishermen a lot more then they will gain!

Anyway, that's my opinion, and that's just one of the reasons why you always see me fighting so hard for our fishing access rights. It's just a simple fact; if we don't continue to use it …we will loose it!!!


Cowlitzfisherman