I'm beginning to believe that no matter how good or how bad the fishing, fishermen will whine no matter what. A fishery like the Lake Washington sockeye is opened and closed based on the best information anyone has. The best fishery information happens to be estimates. Estimates are nothing more than reasoned guesses. Well, one alternative that is very conservation oriented in favor of the fish is to never allow any fishing anywhere because the run might be lower than the managers think. Or try the opposite: open all fishing everywhere, all the time. Oops! We tried that one for several decades, and it got us into the mess we find ourselves today. The middle of the road approach seems to be to use estimates based on good information, and permit fishing accordingly. When the available information changes, change the regulation of the fishery. That is, allow a longer season, higher catch limit, or close it, if need be.

And let's recall that dead fish don't spawn. Reel Truth wants to know if "those socks slaughtered at Ballard are counted into the Lake quota given to the Indians?" A couple comments seem warranted. If sockeye caught be Indians are slaughtered, what was it that happened to the 13,000 sockeye caught in the July 4th recreational fishery? Slaughtered, or merely captured and creeled? See what I mean?

Reel Truth is an intelligent person who knows that those fish caught by the Indians and removed from the spawning population are no more dead than those taken on hook and line. I'm not wanting to bash RT here, but I do want to be emphatic that we sporties are not on any high moral ground here. A dead fish is a dead fish, gillnet or hook, they don't spawn.

Further, nobody "gave" the Indians a quota. Is it really so easily forgotten that the tribes are simply exercising a treaty reserved right? Nobody "gave" any tribe a quota or fishing right. The government, and subsequently the courts, simply acknowledged that Indians have possessed these rights since time immemorial, long before the treaties were made. Which is why the rights were included in the treaties.

These flippant and sarcastic comments about treaty Indian fishing are sometimes irresistable, and I've made my share. However, they can only have as their basis either racism or ignorance. It seems there's a bit of latent racism in many of us. I cannot claim ignorance about the issue; how about you?

Sincerely,

Salmo g.