Check it out! So much for the blackmouth season!

http://www.wa.gov/wdfw/fish/regs/commregs/hotline/2003/oct3103.htm

Do they have to be out there on the weekends? How about having a stagered zone area so that atleast we know where the salmon aren't cleaned out....

It's not about us sport fishers- thats why it's so vitally important for the sportfishers to put the miniscule differences behind us and present a united front to get some of these things changed--- like the legislative mandate that WDFW operates behind.

I dont understand why you think gillnetting, which occurrs in the top half of the water column, would severly affect the blackmouth?

Yes, there are some fish that will rise with the fall of night, but not all, and I would hazard to guess not the majority of Blackmouth.

Of course I am not a proponent of gillnetting, so dont take my post the wrong way, but the netters are targeting chum and maybe coho with this method.

All I know Sky is that what I thought should have been a productive area, I came up empty for blackmouth with netters in-front and in back of me. I speculated, as you did, that it shouldn't affect BM to a large degree. I was just surprised to see the commercial gillnetters, in addition to the tribal ones. I was in 8-2, did you make it out this last weekend?

A bit over a month ago I went out targeting coho and was trolling a cut-plug at 35'. I couldn't keep the blackmouth off. Several legal with the largest was over 10lbs. Felt so guilty that I moved out of the area thinking to myself....I've got to come back in November.

November comes and nothing but few tiny shakers. Gillnetters may target chum, but they certainly aren't going to try to avoid snagging blackmouth when they are out there.

I went out in front of the Edmonds oil docks for an hour or so this afternoon and had no bites. There were two tribal bow pickers (gill netters) working with nets strung about a mile across the channel one from the Edmonds side and another from the Kingston side...hard for the ferries to navigate through the nets. I saw them haul in the catch from one set and I could see the fish as they tossed them over their heads into the back of the boat. I am sure many of the fish were chinook. It has been well documented that area 10 gill netters harvest alot of blackmouth. This is not a guess but a fact. Try catching one in the area when they are done scouring it.

It's fair that people get off their arses and make some money, even if it is Gillnetting. Better than paying for them on unemployment....
Salmongigger OUT!!!!

i think i will save all of my bashing of salmongigger till i find him on the river. i guess there is just something about text that cannot replace knuckles

salmongigger- if your one intent is to get a rise...why dont you do it in the dry fly section

. Chinook and coho must be released......................

Now that made me laugh....released from a gill net.

Notice gillnets aren't required to release by-catch. That is the big problem. Everyone else(including us) has to release out of season fish dead or alive. I'd rather they had to drop dead blackmouth and coho over the side than get to keep them. They shouldn't be financially rewarded for "accidently" snagging the non-target fish.