F4F's pic speaks loudly, I drive by the river constantly and see many nets laid like this.....sometimes 10 or 20 yards apart.
From The 1st ave bridge all the way up to the oxbow parking lot. Seems like plankton could not get through sometimes much less escapement goals.

A4S I have seen the devastation in many ecosystems around the Pacific and I would sure hate to see Puget Sound added to that list.
The one thing I have seen time and time again is the folks that run these nets, whether they are in the sound, Columbia, Off shore, Phillipines, Samoa, Borneo, Australia, Indonesia.....( the list is long, very long), these folks live for today and have no regard for the future. Wether it is lack of education or greed or just ambivilance(sic) the effect is the same. As I see it we are at or above sustainable harvest in so many fisheries around here and everywhere. I see the abuses that are a direct result of mismanagement by the very stewards that are supposed to take care of the resource. Look at the Columbia, several years ago(?) the salmon gillnet season was shutdown due to low returns, the State then opened Sturgeon up to the gillnetters(?) and in a very short time thousands of tons of sturgeon were harvested, The fishery could not handle it and now the sporties are taking the brunt of the cuts in opportunity. It seems like there are more stories like this than there are gallons of water in the state. I have no animosity toward the tribes, christ I am 1/4 nate myself if it matters, its just that there is such a poor track record of management for the good of the resource, especially by the tribes. We will either learn from the mistakes of others or we will have no fish.
Do not think that this cannot happen, it is happening over and over again all over the world. I know of many places that 10 yrs or more ago were thriving reefs, when the fish ran out for the gillnetters they began dragging. When that ran out they started using cyanide. And when the aqarium fish ran out they started blasting the reef with dynamite because they could sell the coral, now nothing is left...nothing...I remember going back to the Island I am thinking of in Thailand and the devastation was unbelivable.... I cant express it... I cried...five years before there was one of the most beutiful reefs I had seen, now there is nothing but flat sandy bottom....
This is a recipe that has been followed time and time again...the species and techniques change from place to place. In poor economies it happens faster. The result NEVER CHANGES!
So you see A4S my personal animosity is toward those who are responsible for this type of destruction...regardless of skin color and the nets are a very large and very visible part of the problem. I wish I could find the words to express it better and I really did not mean to get so heavy, when I step back the big picture hits a little close to home. I do not want to see it happen here...and it already has.......