Got an interesting letter from Trout Unlimited in my mailbox today - 5 pages worth and signed by Jim Derry, Bill Robinson, Ric Abbett, Jim Wilcox and Bob Johnson. They are urging that recreational sports fishers not support BAN. Their overall premise is that it is poorly written and will do more harm than good for recreational fishers.

According to the letter, one of the measures that TU has recommended in the Canadian/US fishing debacle is buy-out of 40% of the non-Indian Fraser River sockeye harvest. If BAN passes, they say the US gives up the non-Indian harvest and gets nothing in return.

The letter goes on to say that TU leadership (in WA) believes that developers will use BAN to convince the public that overharvesting is the problem to deflect attention away from habitat destruction, thereby undercutting TU's habitat restoration initiatives. They state that commercial fishers have been "ardent supporters of Washington's very expensive hatchery program....reduced political support for hatcheries will result in reduced hatchery production and fewer benefits for recreational fishers."

The letter raises the point that if nets are banned (which doesn't apply to the Indian tribes), how are recreational fishers going to get herring for bait? They also claim that elmination of the non-treaty commercial fisheries will result in the loss of funding for the Regional Fisheries Enhancement Groups. Each of the roughly 1700 non-treaty commercial fishing licenses contributes $100.00 to the pool of money designated for habitat restoration. These monies are used to match federal and private dollars for efforts to restore fisheries resources. Finally, they say that BAN is not supported by the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association, the Recreational Fishing Industry Association and the Northwest Marine Trade Association and the charter boat industry on the Columbia River and in Westport.

Okay. I haven't lived in Washington all that long. What's up with this letter? Is TU in bed with commercial fishing? Have I been misled by BAN supporters? I'd like to have a better understanding of some of the past history around this. I have to also say that I'm not too happy about my TU membership dollars being used to generate letters like this.