this is my opinion and not worth much but i believe it to be the truth.. thats why it's my opinion..

hatcheries need drastic reform. some need to be closed and their production placed elsewhere..

minimal impact on wild stocks should be the single overriding factor in deteremining what reforms are needed.

sport harvest opportunity should be greatly focused on the larger damed rivers Lewis cowlits clackamas.....

Small undammed tributaries should be catch and release , single unbarbed artificials or closed to fishing. rivers like the East Lewis, Wind, Klickitat, and John day


Some rivers should be managed as a mixt stock and hatchery practices in such places should be focused on minimizing impact on wild fish.. Such rivers would be. the Washougal, Sandy, Deschutes

At least one river in each segmet of the columbia should be completely void of any hatchery fish. My recommendations for the lower and middle columbia would be
Grays, East lewis, south toutle, Wind , Klickitat and John day rivers.

I believe there is room for all methods of managment. No one is going to get everything they want from any side of this debate.. What i have laid out above is my best opportunity for a reasonable compromize..

It is clear one thing must end though.. that being commercial spring salmon fishing on the Lower columbia...

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Rob Allen:

sport harvest opportunity should be greatly focused on the larger damed rivers Lewis cowlits clackamas.....

It would be disheartening to see that actually happen. Such is a greatly improbability . I don't fish those rivers for the reason that I favor Olympic Peninsula rivers. To say that we should focus sport fishing on the cowlitz, clackamas, and lewis is ridiculous in my mind. There is only so much elbow room before people would have to start lining up for their turn to fish.

rock hopper

1. we are talking specifically about the columbia river system

2. I said sport HARVEST not sport fishing

3. like i said everyone has to compromise a little. If no one is ever willing to give up anything then we will never get anywhere in terms of protecting wild fish.. If people are saying " i won't give up anything" that means that they do not care about wild fish at all OR they don't believe ALL the available scince indicating the harm hatchery fish do to wild fish..

Rob

Believe it or not I often agree with some of your comments. I respect your passion for the issues even though I slam you from time to time. I think Spring Chinook netting on the Columbia is shameful and needs to be stopped. I really believe if WT would have continued to work on that with PSA and others we would probaably be on the same side. Too many wild fish are killed in that fishery and that is a documented fact.

Your idea to have small rivers free of hatchery fish is fine as long as you would agree to not wet a line in any of them regardless of C&R. If your goal is simply to have what I have called "boutique" fisheries then I am against that. We should not be saving "wild" fish for the catch and release benefit of the small group that wants only that type of scenario.

As far as sports fishers being unwilling to sacrifice and give up things...WOW have we ever sacrificed. Look at the current closure of crabbing for example. We take only 15% of the catch meaning 85% commercial and we are shut down across the board so the 85% crowd can harvest their "share"...same with shrimping only worse. The allocations of the salmon and steelhead stocks will be coming up for 2004 soon and you can see how much sacrifice sportsmen have endured while the commercial harvesters keep on killing wild fish by the thousands....then there is the co-management side with their incredible take of wild fish.

Yes Rob we need to reform hatcheries and probably close some. We need a balanced approach so if we close a hatchery we don't allow commercial netting in the migration path of any of the wild fish returning to the area we are trying to revive wild fish in without hatcheries and without sports fishing.