Of all the people on the board, who would be in favor of ridding our waters of these fish eating animals?? Has anyone personally had one steal a springer chinook that you had hooked??
Keith

Yep, lost a small chinook at the mouth of the Lewis to a sea lion a couple of years ago. Man can they swim fast. I barely was able to break the 20 pound line as my reel emptied in a hurry. I'd favor thinning them out, but it ain't gonna happen in our lifetime.

stlhdr1
In relation to your post, I had a battle with a seal, this last blackmouth season. I was on a guided trip(not too cheap). I brought a friend as a gift, and they had never caught a salmon.
Well my friend did hook into a nice little 12#BM.
Now we were into the bait, and the poles started lighting up! I hooked into a nice fish, only to see a seal grab onto it. The skipper did not want to lose his precious dodger, so we chased the seal for 30 plus minutes(my arms were jello).
Another guy on the boat, who wanted to chase a seal, got his wish as well.(another 30 plus minutes) Anyhow to the point!!
The seals and sea lions are becoming ALOT!! more agressive every year, so something has to be done, (seal bombs barely phased this group).So I for one without getting into a war with somebody agree with somehow, reducing the population!!
I am a native to the area, and I know it is getting worse.I will leave the guides name anonymous, so don't ask!! (320.00 for a seal chasing trip!) It has since been talked about, and he is a nice guy, so it is not an attack on this guide.

Woodsy Wayne

Keith, hooked hell,sealion tore it clean off a 3' bleedin rope on the 5th of April this year.They have balls came between us and an other boat anchored 5' away in a hogline below Rainier.....kill'em all... .. ..ok thin em out.............
At Astoria I'm 1 for 2, did get a 17# chinook away from a seal, tail was roughted up a little, then lost a big nook to a sealion under the bridge, a couple years ago.

the indians have permits to shoot them. they shoot lots of sea lions.

Keith I was with a friend at the mouth of the Lewis a number of years ago when the fishing was hot we had 3 nice springers in the boat.We were trying for that limit fish when my friend hooks a nice fish on the maker line and all of a sudden a big bull sealion grabs his fish so I told him to do circles on top of him to force him to let it go, after a few seconds he lets go, in all the confusion my friends line gets wrapped around the tip of his rod so he cant gain any line, so he cranks up the motor and heads for the beach at full speed.He shut the motor down just before we hit the beach he jumps out of the boat and just start to run up the beach just then I looked back to see the fish making a wake,them MR SEALION grabs it again and snap gos his line.I still give him a bad time about trolling for sealions.I have been duck hunting in a delta area of PS and heard a large amount of large rifle rounds being spent a while later the fog lifted and there were a bunch of seals and sealions dead on the beach.I found out later that the tribe had done it !!!!! I wish there was a market for there meat then they could harvest them and make money and save a lot of fish at the same time.

Did you thank the Indians.

Man I need some more indian friends....
Keith

BEAT THE *******S

Didn't have many lions or harbor seals in the sound when I was a kid. It seemed like every fisherman out there had a gun of some kind. At day break you'd hear a shot or three. No one talked about it much, but a lot of dead ones sure washed up on the beaches. Never heard of any accidents either - Now THAT'S gun control.

Crusty

Indians anrn't the only ones who shoot sea lion. Commercial fishermen will do it when they can get away with it....Hell, I've even got a coupl of confirmed kills. I'll shoot them every chance I get.

I wonder if I could hire a Indian guide to take me seal/sealion hunting? Mabe start a new $$$$ stream for the Tribes.

If it came down to who or what has a right to fish I would have to give the mammals that live in the sea the right ahead of our own selfish wants. Sea lions and such need fish to survive, we don't.

We don't need to kill them all, just thin them out. In the south end of Hood Canal they don't have any natural preditors. Something needs to be done!!

Crusty how have you been??

Fishhead5

There's a lot of cracker anglers out there. Should we be thinning them out, too?

A couple of rifle cracks before dawn and you've got the hole to yourself. It's not until the bodies wash up somewhere downstream that people notice. They would have wasted the fish they caught anyway.

i am in no way gonna be upset if anyone out there shoots seals or sealions, especially the sealions, i have jus recently schemed up a idea, i am thinking of purchasing a gun that breaks down and get a silencer tapped onto it jus to do some sealion fishin, any buddy out there think that is to extreme??? like i said its jus a idea

A few years back when I was fishing for kings we seen a seal come swimming up the river he was only about five or six miles from the salt but that really puts a hamper on the fishen. I think you can still get seal bombs out on the reservations or a dupont spinner will do just fine too
And at the end of hood canal them animals have no preditors because of the Navel Base (Banger) it keeps all of the orca's (Killer Whales) out and those buggers are the seals and sea lions only natural preditors.
Dances Out

Most of the time if you didn't have that fish hooked and partially played out, the seal couldn't catch it.

I've seen seals up the Snohomish as far as the city on Snohomish. They were after our steelhead.

who caught the first fish, the sealion or the cracker? If you pick up on a chick that i like does that give a reason to pop a slug or two in you?

Old Man..... Our Steelhead?

I just want to make sure I have assembled all of the information here...

Kill the sea lions and seals cuz' they kill fish, kill the Orcas cuz they kill fish, shoot the cormorants and gut the squawfish cuz they kill fish...where does this logic end?? If you follow it through to the top of the food chain you wind up with "Kill fishermen".

Or do you we stop short of carrying it through to its logical conclusion? If so why? This is ludicrous in my opinion. The tribes kill an awful lot of fish in their nets, would you have us shoot them? Why not? How about "because it isn't right, legal or fair". To even suggest it would have you facing felonious charges.

This weekend at the new restaurant in La Push a man was seen firing his rifle at the seals and sealions in the bay. Guess what, it's a felony and you will face Federal charges if caught. When caught he tried to hide behind tribal protection claiming native hunting rights. He is in jail now with the rest of the criminals. It doesn't matter who you are, where you are or why you are doing it, killing sea-lions is a felony and admitting it in a public forum such as this is well...not smart.

For those of you that didn't get to fish the Cedar and the slue you may not have the same dislike for seals/sealions that some of us have I have watched a sealion eat 12 steelhead in less than 45 mins at the locks,I have watched the decline of the hoods canal fishery.Seals/sealions have no natral predators left in our inland waters.If things were in ballnce this thread would'nt be here

The balance has to come from somewhere?

This May sound a bit far fetched but I have seen a few seals out at Hoodsport hatchery and the little *******s Catch some hens Bite of a peice of the neck and suck out the eggs and leave the rest of the fish.

So with no natural preditors to help keep the population in check we should just let them grow till they take up everyones docks and are destroying fishermans boats and nets.

If you kill a seal or sea lion while running your boat in the salt or up a river for that matter and it messes up your boat then what do you do?

So what happens when the food supply runs out for the seals and sea lions and they start to move to different sources of food? Or they start to die off and end up all over our beaches? some thing needs to be done to thin out the populations of seal and sea lions. Not mass extention but at least some thinning
Dances Out

Can you beleave the nerve of the seals. I mean ****, just cause someone comes in your house and disturbs your way of life you think you have a right to live the way nature ment for you to????

If someone came into my house and started farting around trying to get some food i'd be like go head pay no attention to the fact that this is my house.

(I know because where im from I have no room to talk but since its the US I'll throw in my 2cents)

JN
We screw with every thing else in this world why not with the sea lions and seals?
Dances Out

Unreal H20-
I can't even beleive I'm reading what you write, you want everything to balance out but pussyfoot around the real facts... Is it really going to hurt if a few 1000 seals and sea lions are killed. I know it wouldn't hurt my feelings.

I wish we could all get together and get a hunting season on these worthless animals, I'd agree to eat some if someone else would... :p Dad always taught me to eat what I kill, hell I'd try it...
Keith

Harvest a specie, destroy it's habitat, protect it's predators, we are just like mother nature. Damn mammals-too smart to starve to death.

Geezuz, nothin' like a "my resource, your resource" argument to bring out the best in people.

We put in dams, locks, and crappy ladders, then
b!tch because opportunistic critters are using them as dining establishments.

We poison the sea water with PCB's, then complain because there aren't any natural predators to thin out the sea lions.

We dump tens of thousands of hatchery fish into our rivers that incidentally ALL lead to the salt, which is the sea lion's natural habitat, then b!tch because they eat them. Hello, McFly!!!
They're hungry!!

In my dark, distant past, I've had sea lions take thousands of dollars out of my pocket in one day and never once thought I should shoot one, and there are people that post hero shots twice a week here that suggest there aren't enough fish for them to catch.

"Is it really going to hurt if a few 1000 seals and sea lions are killed. I know it wouldn't hurt my feelings."

Of course not, they are killing "your" fish...

Of course its not going to hurt your feelings, your not dead...

If a thousand sasquatches descended from the mountains and started seeking revenge on humans for exploiting "their" resource I'll bet you'd pat them on the back, damn humans keep stealing their fish...

A-FREAK'in-MEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You can cath them on the bouys going out in the morning. It is the coolest thing to see that 2413 arrow tipped with a 100 grain Thundrhead make a complete pass through on a big bull sea lion. The best part is no one hears a thing. Once in a while you can catch one on a log out in the middle of the bay. It is pretty fun trolling in trying not to spook them before you get a shot off!!! Great FUN....

I once saw a Bald Eagle dive into the water and grab a nice bright fish. It struggled to get to the bank with it but I'll be damned if it didn't start to eat MY fish!

I for one would be the first to sign up should the state allow me to start blasting eagles out of the sky! Nothing prettier than seeing a plume of Eagle feathers drift slowly to the ground as the smell of gun powder fills the air! Worthless creatures!

Hilo

Please tell me that I missed the point and you are kidding.

Damn I can't sneak anything by anyone here!

Leadthrower -

He is cleverly asking the question what is the difference between these two mentalities, much like my sasquatch question, only more grounded in reality.

I hear seal tastes really good on a "cracker".

Some of you guys are ABSOLUTE FOOLS! You are on a public forum bragging about killing sea lions, a species protected by the feds. So you lose a fish now and again, think how many fish you'll catch after they take your boat, hand over a huge fine and throw your dumb ass in jail. I dislike losing fish to them as much as anybody, but thats a huge risk to take by killing one.

stlhdh2o, skywalker and HBP

Could not have said it better.

The hunting is best in the fog. No one can see, and no one can hear. Just the sound of the release
followed by that fantastic thwacking sound that only an arrow can make when it hits home. If you don't want to kill them just uscew a practice tip, put on a bis washer, and screw the tip back on. When they get hit the arrow only goes a little ways. It has to hurt like **LL! Going for the head shot can be good practice.

In Newfoundland, there are certain seasons and areas open for seal hunting. They are not an endangered species there...in fact, they have an overpopulation problem. Flippers are a mainstay on many restaurant menus over there, and they are sold at stands on the side of the road($2.00 each when I was there 5 years ago!)

What we have is a man-made problem, and it seems that the man-made problems are the most difficult to solve. The thing that makes the most sense to me is to have some form of selective harvest for seals & sea lions...but only in areas where they endanger our fish populations. If there is no longer a "natural" predator for these creatures, that is also man's fault. They should not be at the top of the food chain. Just a thought.

prior post says -- "I wish we could all get together and get a hunting season on these "worthless animals"

FINALLY, a bulletin board where someone has ALL the answers. In fact they know better than God the creator what creatures should be and should not be here, and their respective value to the earth.

And to think that we get all this knowledge for FREE.

I doubt very much that God would condone building a massive structure that wipes out entire species of His/Her creations. However, that is what happened.

Finding the balance is the ultimate answer, and I don't think anyone knows how to do that just yet.

As for getting this knowledge for free; well, you get what you pay for!

BTW...these same people are the ones who claim that "God gave them right to fish". Apparently he also gave them the right to kill sea-lions and to play god themselves...I feel much better about the world knowing there are so many Gods walking around...Wait a minute...that's blasphemy!!

Depends on your religion, H20 - Some of us worship many gods.

I seriously doubt any of them are posting here, however.

To each their own. If you would like to see what overpopulation of seals look like take a look at Tillamook Bay. How many seals will you see in this protected environment. 2,000 - 3000 maybe, I don't have the latest numbers but they are a lot. Killer whales seldom run the gauntlet and stir this group. Watch them as they catch a fish and bit the belly out letting the rest fall to the bottom for crab feed. Great for the crabs, right!!. Where did all of the flounder go? I have a good idea. It appears to be all right only because there is nothing that we can leagally about it. It dosen't make it right. Granted what man has done to the whole picture has caused quite a mess. Yet sitting back and doing nothing to correct a problem seems to be the way of most people. I personally do not plan on developing a taste for seals in the near future, but at the same time don't want to see mass destruction of seals. Some of them are pretty cute. People just need to take care of the problem quietly without making new issues for someone to complain about.

Seals above tide water in the rivers is another issue, these guys need to go away for good.

Ahhhh, and there's the real problem. Too many sea lions.

How many billion people are there on the earth? How many species have we rendered extinct? And why? Because we can? Because we didn't think? Because we had an economic interest that carried more weight?

Man, I have never understood that short-sighted philosophy, and I never will. I'm no tree hugger, but I sure can't justify killing thousands of creatures who's increased numbers are due to my own species activities. Not without considering resolving the root cause, at least. We truly are pitiful creatures, when you analyze our habits with respect to other animals. We truly are the a-holes of the planet.

Balance doesn't come from capital countermeasures implemented against life that WE'VE assisted to thrive, it comes from undoing what we did to promote it in the first place. If nothing else, a new balance comes from tolerating the less-than-critical crap we've created for ourselves, which is the bag I throw this into.

I figure the marine mammals that cruise too high into my home stream are just gonna get nasty, deadly diseases from the bovine fecal matter they ingest. Fair's fair.

Ha! Excellent.

Of course Skywalker, the REAL answer is to tear down the dams, etc. (Yeah, and Tony Dunnington can't WAIT to fish Goldsboro Creek in a few years...then write about it!)

But that isn't going to happen in my lifetime, and probably not in my kid's time either.

Nets and seals...what the #@$% do we do?

funny listening to the tree huggers say save the sea lions, there gods creatures, I bet if one was pissed off at ya you wouldn't think that, but you got to be on the water for that to happen tree hugger so you have nothin to worry about then.

Ya, that'll teach those seals. Im sure the seal will be like 'Dam I just got an arrow stuck in my ass, I knew i shoulnt have stole that dudes fish'

Make sure you attach a note to your arrow so the seals get the point as to why your shooting it.

Rockfish dazzling us with his GED again!!!

That is the second post I have seen you put up ( the other on another unnamed board) where the sum of all your intelligence is expressed in name calling?! Contribution duly noted!

Hilo, nice slam on Ifish, you post on this thread, then you run over there and say how bad the people on this BB are. What gives? .....jerk

Rapid Robert,

Please feel free to quote me from any of my posts on ifish and demonstrate where I dig on this bulletin board? That is simply not the case! I posted on Ifish a similar thread on this as I wanted to see what people over there felt on the topic. I did mention that I was amazed at the comments to kill em all! If this is the slam you are referring to then I cannot help to question your ideas of slamming?!

By the way "jerk" was a nice touch! Maybe next time you can just say you think what I did was wrong but hey that would be too simple!

If I were ashamed of what I post on either board I would attempt to hide behind different names instead I choose the same name so people that are on both boards can tell who I am.

It's unfortunate that posts come up chronologically (that's means by when they're posted, RF), so I can't tell who's replying to me or anyone else. I'll speak, though, since without me claiming not to be a tree hugger you probably wouldn't have used the term.

I'll bet you your annual salary that you can't find any post on this board where I've given God credit for anything.

That being said, I don't have to credit God to have respect for other life forms.....even you, to some degree. Like, I wouldn't shoot you or anything. :p

Some day you'll be telling your grandkids (or someone else's) about the time you saw this animal, or that, and how the world was a little different when you were a kid. Will you tell them you were one of the people that applauded it?

I don't get all activist about this stuff, or anything, I just can't believe some of the "it's my world and I'll do anything to it I want" cr@p that's come out of this thread. No friggin' respect for one's own backyard. Ridiculous.

Hey Robert -

Since when does saying that this board is more opinionated equate to a slam?? I read his post and he didn't even refer to it by name, only if you happen to be reading both threads would you know for sure...

Now because of your demonstrated lack of reading comprehension skills you have painted a false picture of Hilo's post. Congratulations on your ability to distort reality WITHOUT the use of mind altering drugs...Read Hilo's post on Ifish and tell me who's the jerk now....

Hope you don't mind Hilo, I took the liberty of copying and pasting your post...

"I have been a member of several fishing forums for only a short time. In that short time I have been astonished at people's opinions on what should be done about problems with NW fisheries. The most astonishing is the approach people believe should be taken towards Seals and Sea Lions. In a nutshell it has been Kill em all!

I understand that these creatures do the NW fisheries no favors in terms of conservation but does that give humans the right to destroy them? I have heard (on other forums) people brag about how they have killed them knowing that they are protected under federal law. Am I so far out of touch with this issue or is this absurd to others as well?"

I don't mind. Truth be known I would hate to have a label placed on me on this board as I have only been a member a short time! Offending anyone on here is my last intention. I have only joined the forums as a place for learning both about fishing and issues that surround fishing.

Most forums that I have been a part of do not take kindly to members calling other members names. I am not used to a forum that allows such behavior but judging from the ones making the comments I should not take them to heart.

I appreciate the fact that there are so many varying opinions on this board and that people are willing to argue them passionately. It does not lead me to conclude that there are bad people here because they have differing views than my own. Rather it leads me to think that people give important issues as our NW fisheries serious thought, and without that the fisheries are doomed.

I don't think everyone needs to respect what I say or believe but at least respect me (and others) enough not to resort to name calling. I can get enough of that hanging out with me nephew and his friends!

Where'd Robert go?? Looks like he made a Rapid departure...

are sea lions even native to here? some old timer in manchester told me they came from california. just the harber seals are native. not to sure thou that is what he just told me. Ben

Well what a nice dialogue to follow. There are many problems affecting salmonid stocks...and seals and sealions are one of those many. Should we kill them all? No...thats one of the old solutions that got us the Marine Mammal Act and ignores that predators do have a necessary place in the lives of salmonids. But on the other hand there has been a three fold explosion in seal and seal lion populations in Puget Sound. One of the simple rules of nature is that in the face of significantly increased predator populations the prey populations will be reduced to a level from which they are unable to rebound to their previous numbers. The prey population stabilizes at that lower number as long as the predator population remains stable.
In the case of my home rivers steelhead we can totally remove all other factors....spend a million bucks on habitat...but as long as that predator-prey relationship remains stable there won't be an increase in fish coming back. Solution? Do I want to eradicte those predators? No...but I would like some form of control to be considered. Playing God? Nope. Playing human yep. One thing for some to consider...our ecosystem or landscape has been significantly changed and its to some degree permanent. Making everything like it was 100 years ago isn't going to be the solution...but learning to live with what we have may lead to solutions.

I'm getting a really itchy finger again ...