MasterCaster, and Double Hual

It was not the Fly fishers who screwed up the Cowlitz! It was the clever Utility company named Tacoma Power. Yes their was some involvement by fly fishers "IF" you consider American Rivers and Trout Unlimited to be only Fly fishers.

But you got to remember who invited them to participate and paid them to do it. It was Tacoma Power! Tacoma Power knew that these grops were heavily into wild fish and that is why they brought them aboard. It only makes sense, if you were a Power hungry utility like Tacoma, you would be doing the same thing. They knew that if they could get the Cowlitz "programmed" to favor wild fish production instead of "hatchery production", they could save millions of dollars each and every year! Do the math on their 35 years license (a million and a half for hatcheriers each year = $52 Million dollars!) and that's not even including the cost savings of another $15+ million dollars for the fish ladders that they got out of installing of in the Settlement Agreement.

There is just no good reason on earth that we could not have had both hatchery and "natural" production both going on in the upper Cowlitz basin! I defy any board member or WDFW staff to prove otherwise! The nightmare on the Cowlitz can be credited to three groups in my opinion. First and foremost is Tacoma Power. Second is the NMFS. Third, is the WDFW!

Tacoma spent way over 12 million dollars to assure that fish ladders would not be installed for at least the first 15 years, and that the future hatchery production would be cut back so that wild fish would become the highest priority and goal .

NMFS assisted Tacoma by not demanding "volitional" fish passage at both Dams (fish ladder at Mayfield and a "tram" system at Mossyrock). That way, both hatchery fish and "natural fish" could both utilize over 240 miles to spawn and produce whatever the water shed was capable of supporting. Since All STOCKS of fish that where to be used were from the same current hatchery stocks, it would have made no difference in the first place! And even "IF" one of the species was not 100% from the Cowlitz, what difference would it really make? I would like to see how NMFS could defend its position on this issue.

Finally, but certainly not last, is our own WDFW. They had the power and the trusted responsibility to demand fish passage that would have allowed both natural and hatchery fish to co-exist together and once again produce naturally produced fish that would once again make the Cowlitz the mighty river that she once was!

But instead, Tacoma held out that $15 million dollar "golden ring" for our WDFW, until WDFW reached out and grabed onto it tightly! It was pretty obvious that WDFW wanted only to depend on "hatchery production" instead of letting the same "hatchery" fish do it for nothing!

Personally, I think that both WDFW and NMFS needs to explain their actions and reasoning for what they have now done to the Cowlitz River fishery. I am looking forward to debating this issue so that the entire board can see just how screwed the fishermen really got on the Cowlitz River Settlement.

I already know what Tacoma Power would say, so let's hear what explanations WDFW and NMFS can come up with!

Let's not blame each other now for things what our state and federal agencies have done to us on the Cowlitz River. It was their agenda not ours! Why else did they sign the agreement without first going public for ALL fishermen to review it first (you already know the answer to that one)?

They had all the time in the world to do so if they had really wanted you to make any commits!

It's time to change the "old ways", and make it a state mandate that any "Settlement Agreements" that WDFW makes, must first go through a public review period for commit before we are force to spend more of our own money to fight ourselves in court. Because whenever we take the "state" to court, we are just paying to fight against ourselves. What's wrong with that picture?

Cowlitzfisherman
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Cowlitzfisherman

Is the taste of the bait worth the sting of the hook????