Hey glowball

You said; "They were so thick yesterday I couldn't reel in my spinner with out catching a fish. I tried reeling as fast as I could and they still hit it. Should be easy pickens for you." Do you known that a very large majority of those coho "smolts" that everyone is catching are from "natural spawned" wild genetic stocks of coho?

Ever year, 10's of thousands of unmarked coho are taken above the dams for natural production. Did you known that those fish are the same genetic fish that the Cowlitz "wild fish" were? Each year, tens of thousands of unmarked coho fry and smolts pass through the Cowlitz Falls Dam into Riffe Lake and sometimes become land lock if they do not spill water. Does that make it "ok" of to catch these wild fish? I hear a lot of BS on this board about not taking, harming or killing the few wild fish that we have left in our state, so how does this work then?

Yep, now I will be hearing you say that they were all clipped! And yep, I will tell you BS!

Not trying to pick on you; just trying to show how we seem to have double standards when it comes to an unmarked fishery.

Think about it, and then give your reply. I really want to see how other fishermen can walk on both sides and not cross over the line!

As just one example; this is directly from a report from the most current Cowlitz Falls Fish Collection Facilities report dated May 16, 2003: "Daily smolt catches increased from an average of 1,086 smolts per day last week to an average of 4,025 smolts per day this week. The majority, 67.8% of the smolt catch was composed of coho smolts."

Almost 90% of these smolts are considered to be "wild" and unclipped under the endangered species Act! All wild unmarked coho have to be released on the Cowlitz and are captured at the Barrier Dam and released into the upper Cowlitz for natural production.

At best, the new trapping faculties have about a 45% rate of capture. That means that all you wild fish guys are killing a huge amount on native fish! They all end up in the Riffe Lake first, and Mayfield Lake secondly. Are fishermen sometimes "hypercritics" when it really comes to saving our "wild genetic" fish stocks . . . you tell me!

Those are the facts, so I will stand by them unit proven otherwise or wrong!!

Cowlitzfisherman