Hello Everyone,

My friends and I fished Blue Creek today for the first time in several years. I could not believe the amount of garbage being left along the shoreline. As fishermen we should be stewards of the river. So I have a proposal for anyone interested. We are planning to return to Blue Creek on Saturday, Jan 11th. But this time instead of bringing my rod I am bringing large garbage bags and gloves. We plan to spend a couple of hours and clean up as much as we can. We believe that fishermen are better than what we saw and Easy Limits and I are willing to put action where our talk is. So my challenge and request to you is to join us at Blue Creek for a Piscatorial Pursuits/WashingtonLakes.com cleaning day. The more people that contribute even an hour or two the quicker it will get done. We plan on getting started in the morning and will meet where the creek drops into the river. We were thinking that since there will be many bags of garbage we'll make a sign requesting anglers to pack out a bag of garbage when they leave for the day. The packed garbage bags will be piled up at the trailhead at Blue Creek. I'm willing to bet that anglers who are done fishing will at least do this for the river. I'm inviting as many of you as can come to join us and get this area cleaned up. Lets do something positive instead of just talking about how bad it is.

Any takers?

Where will all the trash be sent when we are done. It can not be left there as it will not be taken care of. We did this last year in the parking lot and was told just leave it by the trash cans. It was not pick up so the trash got spread all over with the winds and birds.

I am going to contact the hatchery and let them know we are doing this. I think the best place to pile it up would be by the toilets but I will ask them what they want us to do with it. I'll include that information on the sign at Blue Creek.


It's unfortunate that the garbage didn't get picked up last year from the parking lot, but I hope that wouldn't stop us from cleaning up the river area. Lets face it - the the shoreline is our responsiblity - the parking lot is the hatchery's responsibilty (or the county, I'm not sure on this). If I had to chose I'd rather have a messy parking lot and a clean shoreline rather than messy everything.

Good of you mike to take on such a humongous task!

May I make a few suggestions to you that may benefit your efforts?

First, neither the hatchery nor WDFW has anything to do with the Blue Creek Parking lot. The lot, the johns, and the trask pick-up are the responsibility of Tacoma Power. Tacoma owns the hatchery, and the parking lots but the hatchery is run by WDFW staff.

Secondly, If you leave the trash bags their, they will more then likely be torn apart by someone dog, cat or other critter.

So I would suggest that you contact Mrs. Debbie Young from Tacoma Power. Debbie is Tacoma's Natural Resources Manager, and she would be the best person to ask for help on your project. Tell her of the "good PR" that it would do for Tacoma. Chances are pretty good that she can put into action the arrangements that are needed to haul away the trash that your party will collect that day.

You can reach Mrs. Young at (253) 502-8340 or by email at dyong@ci.tacoma.wa.us

I hope that this will help you guys out!

Cowlitzfisherman

Good on you Mike!

I have lived fifteen miles from Blue Creek for ten years and have been there exactly twice. Since I am no fan of full contact fishing I spent most of both days picking up trash. ‘Twas a daunting task. Consider trying to empty Riffe Lake with a teaspoon during spring runoff.

If I owned that property there would be ‘no trespassing’ signs on every tree, a ten foot electrified fence complete with razor wire, vicious dogs trained to attack any human on sight, and a security force equipped with automatic weapons whose sole mission would be to finish off anyone who survived the fence and the dogs.

But, since that situation will never come to fruition, I’ll just come and give you guys a hand.

Sorry for the rant.

No I’m not.

Thanks in advance for your and every one's help!!

I don't fish BC very often, maybe once a year, and today I could not believe all the garbage. If BC gets a good scrubbin' only once a year I think a difference will be made and people will take notice.

We are going to need everyones

Thank you CowlitzFisherMan for the contact name and number. I will get in touch with her and let her know our plans.

I hope to meet lots of anglers from this forum on the 11th! I'll keep everyone up to date as it gets closer.

JCW, thanks for the rant! I'll see you there.

I haven't fished off the bank at BC for 20+ years - it was horrible back then and I can only imagine how bad it is now However, I do fish down there, out of a boat - I prefer to anchor up below the creek along the claybanks, not even very crowded any more with everybody boondoggin' :p However, I haven't been able to even get in the water this year, as I don't have a jet sled, I run the river in a prop boat, and I need 6000 cfs to get back up to the launch.

However, I know that there are a bunch of guys on this board with sleds who probably will be fishing down there on the 11th. If you can convince the bankies to hold their fire while a boat or two comes in to pick up the garbage bags it could get packed out a whole lot easier, and probably get delivered to the nearest dumpster to boot.

How about doing something nice for the bankies with your sleds guys

That idea did cross my mind. I would be concerned about it just because of the potential for an accident or damage to a boat. The creek is really skinny right now. Plus, bank anglers brought it in and I do think they should bring it out. I know the ones that brought it in aren't taking it out but there isn't anything we can do about that, other than perhaps cause a little shame when the offenders see that there are people that really care enough to clean up.

Unfortunately my weekends are pretty rare and booked. I work every other weekend. Hopefully there are still enough anglers available to put a dent in the trash. I'm sure if those other anglers want to set up another weekend there will still be some garbage in the parking lot and other spots. For me it's the 11th or bust!

Sounds like a good idea. I will plan on comming down for the day and clean up because it is turning into dump from the many inconsiderate jerks. but anyone who still fishes for the fun and the thrill of it needs to come and make a difference.

Thank you Lamiboy! I will post meeting times and place as we get closer to the 11th. Be sure to bring some type of heavy rubberized gloves. I'll bring the heavy duty trash bags.

Just bringing topic back to the front page. With the recent closures I'm sure a few more anglers can join us. Right?

Mike,

I see that Tacoma just raised the flows up to 5600 on the Cowlitz today. This should bring in a bunch more of bank fishermen to Blue CreeK this weekend. Maybe all those extra fishermen will lend you guys a hand on your clean up that's going on down there this weekend!

The more guys that are fishing, should mean more guys to carry out the trask bags!

Good luck

Cowlitzfisherman

Mike,

I've never been there (can you beleive that?!!) but I'd like to try to join you because I think this is exactly the kind of thing that those of us that espouse to love the outdoors should always do. Could you give me some quick directions coming from Olympia.

Thanks for setting this up. I hope a trend is being set here.

lobo

Lobo,
Thank you! I hope we have a good turn out, but even a few of us I hope will spur others that are there to help out. Easy Limits and I will be ready to go at 9am in the Blue Creek parking lot. I'm going to make a sign. My truck is a 2002 Chevy Silverado extended cab with Leer topper, color is seine (whatever the heck that is - looks silver-tan to me). Be sure to bring heavy rubberized gloves. I'll bring the garbage bags.

I hope I got the right roads. Here is a map:



PS, be careful at the Tucker rd exchange - slow down and watch for on-coming traffic. You go straight thru and don't keep heading right!

Hope no one is upset that I'm posting a map to this zipper lip area. <img border="0" alt="[wall]" title="" src="graemlins/wall.gif" />

Hopefully you guys are not to late. With the river at the level it's at now all that garbage is probably piling up at the bottom of the columbia.

Thumbs up to those involved with this A great idea and something I wish more local clubs would take up. Although, then again, if some river users were a little more concientious, it wouldn't need to be done very often!

I was mentioning to Mike, when we were at BC last, they should just open up the damn for a while.

The garbage would be taken care of..........for a while.

Mike, a noble endeavour your undertaking. I'd love to join you, but unfortunately, I'm involved in a steelhead challenge on Ifish this weekend. I will try and organize one of these with some guys from there on some of our local streams. The garbage just keeps getting worse and it sickens me every time I fish and see all the crap lying around.

Easy, that would only put the garbage out to sea!

I know it would. It was just a joke in casual conversation.

I honestly hear that alot from guys on the river though. I guess I'll lighten up, sorry I didn't know if you were joking. Its funny cause after a real high water I can walk the beach @ 3 tree point and find corkies, cheaters, floats, sometimes even trashed plugs. They must come from the Green or Puyallup.

I expect there will still be plenty of garbage to go around.