With all due respect to SZ and others, I must disagree with any boycott of the community of Neah Bay. From my prespective, boycotting that community is basically boycotting the best sportfishing opportunity for small-boat anglers in Washington's saltwater.
Makah fisheries managers agreed to a model that was presented at the table last year. And their troll fleet exceeded that. Nothin' new, except that it made the media.
Now, there is a publicized guideline (8000-9000).
Fishinut pointed out, in another post, that salmon in our state are substantially commercially harvested by our neibors to the north. The Makah troll fleet numbers published in the paper are a drop in the bucket when compared. Ironic that some of the folks would rather spend their $ on that side of the border over a print in the paper when infact, that commercial fisherman to the north have a greater effect to our salmon return.
The Makah's are easy to blame. They wave a certain finger in everbody's face when they are captured in the media, and could care less what you and I think. They have an ideal location at a major intersection of salmon returns to this area. And those customers of the media are sensitive to that.
Some complain of the loss of two weeks in July in MA 9. It's a supposed coho fishery according to the previous regs. No doubt that there are more migrator chinook present at that time than migritory coho. Instead we get greater oppurtunity in MA 8-1/8-2 from Oct.-Apr., with a greater retention limit for unendangered chinook.
Everyone seems to generalize that the tribe is at fault. Do you think that the tribe wants the negative publicity that the '04 winter troll fishery has brought? No. Did the fisheries managers make a mistake there? Yes. And how are the being repremanded for it? 5 day a week sport season..?
Was the troll fleet given the opportunity and did they take it? Yes. Why did they take it? Because managers within and outside sat at that particular table and agreed on a season in 2004, not on a guidline/quota. Now that there is one, we can only guess as to the outcome.
Some good points were made in previous thread(s) concerning the winter Makah troll fishery. And the efforts of all who contributed words of disapproval did not go in vain. The [(F)Makahs] should not be generalized as a communtity of selfish pillagers. I have no problem if their fishery's managers are.
But again, they are a small drop in the bucket.