Grandpa - Fun5Acres

I can’t buy your logic. I too abhor gillnets. I would ban them tomorrow IF I could. But they are there, so now let's work with what we have.

To my knowledge most gillnets are in the lower river. Most steelhead are hooked by sportsman above the gill nets. Which to me means that the fish has successfully made it past the gill nets. Why would you want to kill one of the survivors, just because his journey was mighty dangerous? Would you advocate shooting a rhino just because there are a lot of poachers doing so? If your friend jumped off a cliff . . . (Sorry about that cliff thing – just thought a bit of humor might help here.)

As far as allowing catch and kill on runs our game department declares healthy, I'm mighty skeptical. Aren’t these the same folks who "managed" more than half our runs into extinction of endangered status? I do not trust them to make the call. I do know that a healthy wild steelhead that has made it past the damn gillnets is a real treasure.

I also agree whit whomever it was who pointed out that C&R should be restricted near spawning time/ areas. I think the Thompson is a good example. Those few fish that get past the gill-netters in the Fraser. Sit in about a five-mile stretch of the Thompson for five months. They get bombarded every day. I have seen some whose mouth looks like a pincushion. They need protection.