Parker/Divers, I have to disagree with you guys on this one.

I can't believe that you would both think that "Gill nets are one of the most selective types of fishery techniques/methods out there". The only thing that a "gill net" is capable of selecting is the "minimum size" of its catch! They do not select the specie, be it wild/hatchery, or endangered. The guy at the other end of the net is person who makes that decision!

How many species do you think have been almost totally eliminated because of this "most selective techniques/method"? Better yet, let me give you an example, that I will challenge the net lovers to counter debate! During the Cowlitz River Relicensing period (6years) the region 5 (Vanccuver) people in WDFW were faced with some hard decisions to make.

Because NMFS had proposed listing the lower Columbia winter-run steelhead as an endangered specie, WDFW was forced to make a decision that actually sacrificed the possibility of any recovering of the Cowlitz early run winter steelhead! Here's how it worked; The Cowlitz is one of, if not the number one producer of coho for the Columbia River Gill net fishery.

If WDFW was to continue their Columbia River "coho gill net fishery", something had to give with the conflict between the early returning Cowlitz River winter run steelhead and coho!

Guess who lost? You can not have a Restoration/Recover program going on at the same time that you are running a non- selective gill net fishery that will take both steelhead and coho! Since coho and steelhead are pretty much the same size, the nets gets them all.

Historically 50% of the Cowlitz native steelhead returned from mid-November thru-February. Accordingly, this just also happens to be the peak return timing for Cowlitz coho. WDFW made the harvest decision to forego any possible chance for the recovery of the early run Cowlitz steelhead for the sake of continuing the Columbia River coho gill net fishery. That's the reason why WDFW drummed up the "questionable genetics" results that were used to justify the elimination of the early run Cowlitz steelhead program.

For well over 30 years the WDFW used numerous mixed stocks of steelhead from all over the state as their brood stocks. Since the dams blocked all natural production, there was nothing but these mixed hatchery stocks to continue the Cowlitz runs for 30 years!

All run timings were mixed with all stocks, and no stocks were allowed to spawn in there natural habitat to maintain there true genetics. But amazingly somehow when the genetic tests were being secretly performed, WDFW somehow found that the genetics of the "late" returning Cowlitz Steelhead (late March-May) were still in tack! Also equally amazingly was that WDFW had no previous genetic proof to support the fact that what they had supposedly claimed to have found were actually the genetics from the original late winter Cowlitz steelhead stock!

Shortly after the genetic report was published, the key person who wrote and published it died, so the real story may never be truly known. The fact is, if gill nets were really selective, we would still be enjoying an early run of Cowlitz River winter steelhead. If you think that you can prove otherwise. . . go for it!

So much for those so-called "scientific reports"!!

Cowlitzfisherman