A poll on IFish was wondering which fishing or fish organization was the best to belong to...there were a few offered in the poll, but most people voted "other" and listed many, many more in the thread.

What do you guys think?

Here's the post I put there...

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I don't think that any one group represents everything that any conscientious angler ought to be concerned about.

While I am the VP of Political and Legal Affairs for the Wild Steelhead Coalition, I also belong to three other organizations, and work weekly with representatives from as many as a dozen more.

Things I see as issues:

1. Opportunity for sportfishermen

This is addressed by working on all the other issues on this list, but more generally is done by addressing things through various channels, i.e., politically, legally, work on the ground, and combinations of all those. No one group I know, except perhaps TU, uses all those channels.

2. Wild fish advocacy

This is accomplished by various types of groups, some being fishing groups, some being conservation groups, some being preseveration groups.

3. Commercial fishing issues

Mainly addressed politically and legally, but from very different and complementary angles. The WSC does it from a limiting wild steelhead bycatch angle...NSIA does is from a greater allocation of harvestable fish for sportfishermen and the businesses that depend on them, as does the NMTA. WT, OT, and NFS do it from the ESA impacts on wild salmonids, steelhead and salmon, angle. PSA and RFA do it from a sportfishing opportunity angle.

All of these are important, and all need to be done, and none of these groups do it from all the necessary angles.

4. Hydro issues

Kind of the same as #3, all the groups address it, but from very different angles.

5. Habitat issues

Some groups spend time planting trees, some picking up garbage, some spreading carcasses, some battling the BPA, or counties, or using the SMA or GMA, or the ESA, or working for funding to fix habitat that's still salvageable, or protecting habitat that's still pristine.

Again, all necessary, and many different groups all work on it to get all the different angles covered.

Sometimes the same groups that band together on, say, the Col. R. net fishery issues, may be on opposite sides of the table when the discussion of proper hatchery techniques comes up. Three or four groups may even represent four non-compatible positions.

In an effort to protect wild fish, some groups may advocate for better selective fisheries, while some may advocate for less hatchery fish. The overall goal is the same, though, because there is no opportunity if wild fish get pushed too far...we'll have no hatchery fish or fishing.

With all these competing needs and philosophies, how does the sportfishing community come together and take the big chunk of political power we have by the horns and wield it with all of our numbers behind it?

To me it's obvious, the various groups have to agree to agree on some things, and agree to disagree on others. Unfortunately, it's just as obvious that most of the folks in the groups, including many here and on other BB's, don't agree to disagree, and also agree to just antagonize each other on everything because they don't agree on everything.

It's stupid and counterproductive, and makes the tribes and commercial fishermen jump for joy.

Fish on...

Todd