Last night at the WB Advisory meeting, it was revealed that staff walking a newly opened area of the Naselle River last fall VISUALLY confirmed 24 belly-gutted WILD chinook.... the eggs stripped and the remaining carcasses laid to waste.

That anything like this even happens within our ranks is obscene and puts a black eye on the entire rec community.

This act is particularly egregious because WFWC/WDFW are desperately trying to rebuild this horribly depleted stock of natural origin chinook, and to date, have yet to meet a bare-bones escapement goal.

Now, some may say, "BFD, it's only 24 hens... what could it possibly hurt?" Well when the entire river is producing an estimated 500-900 natural-origin chinook... 40% of which are estimated to be hens.... those 24 stripped fish could represent nearly one out of eight hens in the escapement. THAT'S HUGE!

Think about this.... at a conservative fecundity of 4000 eggs per hen, that's nearly 100,000 natural-origin eggs. That's an entire conservation hatchery program worth of wild brood!

The most disturbing part about this wastage is that it represents actual observed wild hens stripped of eggs. How many were not seen? How many dragged off by other critters out of sight?

This is a BIG deal folks. And it's only compounded by the illegal snagging, trespassing, and uncollected garbage complaints voiced by local landowners.

The advisors worked very hard to open up access to these reaches in the name of enhanced recreational opportunity. This is not what we intended for our hard-won efforts.

HEED THIS.... the rec community partaking of this expanded freshwater chinook opportunity is being put on notice!

STRAIGHTEN UP and fly right, folks.... or the agency has no other recourse but to close these areas to fishing. Hopefully, peer pressure alone will be sufficient to resolve this issue. If not, the consequences are pretty clearcut.