so, what do we do now?

Suppose could go yarn fly dipping at Tokul. Wish the Sammamish River was still viable...used to hit that when other rivers out and before sweet brown-eyed Herschel ate the whole run.

Any other ideas other than fishing back alleys in flooded towns? These days wonder what rivers clear first...Raging & Tolt used to be good right after floods when the fish go charging up in big surges...???

i use to enjoy that option as well when i was young and would get to fish out behind the lamson reel factory where my dad worked.

when white people are responsible for 99.99% of our present fish depletion.... why is it allways the fault of a sea lion or an indian or a merganser? isnt denial a sure sign of a problem? you and i both and everyone reading this board and all of our resource managers are just as much to blame as any seal lion.

99% of our fish were allready gone before the boldt decision ( not a defense of the decision, just the way it is)

it is our pride of a system(capitolism) that doesnt work well at all when it comes to public resources. private ownership of a public resource is literally the fox in charge of the hens. and that is the present WDFW..... a dept of ..by... and for ....the commercial interests

High water means you hit the lake with an ultra light and the kids armed with worms for perch. Go do everyone a service by catching a couple hundred Perch, although clening them isn't quite as fun there is no better eatin than that sweet meat of Yellow Perch!

go visit bob

Where do you get your data Lupo?

Well Lupo I am not as responsible for the depletion of native steelhead as are the tribes in this state. I could stamp my feet, protest, get arrested pulling nets from tribes, sit on th front door steps of both Rossi and Gregoire, and still the tribes will have the right to murder tons of native fish. I get sick to my stomach and a sour taste rises from my gut when I visualize the natives pulling nets over on the queets right now. God that makes me sick. I have seen it done all over the state by this tribe and that, and I think it is going to come down to this state among others not having any steelhead in the streams. I don't have numbers for any body but I sure as hell have common sense, and when I hear that tribes are netting every day through Jan. Feb. etc, that's atrocious, and with my sub par math level I can put the ruff numbers together and come up with a big fat 0 in the common sense column.

Good Post, Lupo.
If our votes depended on it, WDFW would be biased in favor of sports fishing. Too many sports fishermen blame the Indians and vote for the developers.
SS

And back to the original question......

Go kill ducks!!!

actually, didn't mean to start an issue.

But in regards to the Sammamish River, it was a case of two man-made problems.

The first was decimating the sea lions during the past century and then over-protecting them.

The second was building a locks which is an unnatural barrier for fish.

This barrier held up this run of steelhead from easily continuing their journey to the Cedar, Sammamish, Bear Cr., Issaquah Cr. etc.

Without intervention from man again, the totally protected sea lions trapped the fish up against a barrier with no escape route. The run size was in the thousands each year and over a few years of sea lion infestation, the run was drastically reduced to the point of virtual elimination.

Now, fishing is banned on the Sammamish. Sure, other factors helped reduce this run like in other rivers....but in this case, it is clear man's impact and the reluctance to intervene again was the culprit. What other choices were there in this particular scenario?

It's not an issue anymore cuz the damage was done and the fish and sportsmen lost this one big time.

"99% of our fish were allready gone before the boldt decision "

You must not have fished here pre Boldt to think that is true?

I agree with the rest about blame.


YakJack,

I read an article a few months back. It said that we whacked the seals and that crashed the Killer whale pop. While it was in the dumper we put protections in place to save the seals. Now you have seal pops with too few predators. Typical of man I suppose.

Yakutat -
There may be more options than one thinks - a visit to the fishing regulation may be in order.

Tight lines
S malma

How that slipped by me I'll never know, but .............

KK

Jack,
I saw the Ballard Locks fiasco first hand. After all these years my blood still boils at how that was handled. The public came to believe that slaughtering the sea lion population was the issue. There was little or no rational discussion of the problem in the media.

Skipping 99% of the rant, all that would have been necessary would have been to shoot and kill maybe one sea lion, with the other sea lions present to see it happen. Instead of dragging him out of sight so the public would be spared the sight of his carcass, the carcass needed to be anchored in the most prominent spot, from the sea lion point of view. Sea lions are smart. You don't need to shoot them all!

If necessary, to re-inforce the message of the anchored carcass, a volunteer (me or one of a 1000 other steelheaders) would have been glad to stand at the locks with a shot gun and pepper any sea lions that showed up with bird shot to remind them that the locks were a very dangerous place.

Sea lion problem solved. No mass slaughter of sea lions required.

It's no point now to go into all the fiddle farting around which took place (for years!)while the Steelhead run went functional extinct. It was unbelievable! And it was a disgrace. An absolute disgrace. A healthy Steelhead run right in the middle of Seattle, a priceless asset, was allowed to go extinct for no reason other than cowardice and pandering.
SS

Smalma...are you implying there is a season on the Sammamish? Could be, I'm not up on the latest regs there, just that when they shut down the steelheading, they shut it down hard. If there is a season, may not be any steelies to fish for (???)

Suckersnagger...good analysis, I agree 100%. If I recall, the media was so one sided, nobody was allowed to do anything cuz those seals have such "pretty brown eyes". People probably thought it would be like shooting their dog. And yes, all it would have taken is to take out a few problem sea lions, and they are very smart, and they would learn very fast. Instead, we spent tons of $$$ transporting them down to Ilwaco etc., and they were back in a few days. What a waste.
Wonder what the bigger crime was...sparing a few of the now abundant sea lions, or letting a fish run go virtually extinct?

And fishing was good in the Sammamish...I remember many multiple fish days there. One day I recall we stopped to fish after hitting the Sky. At the time it was C&R as the run was already in peril due to sea lions. Floats & jigs were deadly due to the slow water...a buddy hooked a nice native of about 15 lbs. in downtown Redmond. This caused a huge crowd of yuppie joggers to stop and gawk. They couldn't believe such a magnificent fish existed in what looks like a ditch. Hopefully they will exist again....

Prior to" Hersel" the Kenmore area was netted by the Muckleshoots during the steelhead season. Combine sea lions with the nets and the run is gone......

Wow........Didn't realize that the Sammamish River was closed to steelhead.......wow, wow, wow.

Middle 50's, I live at the beginning of the Avondale Rd. Fished Bear Creek from opening day, many days after school and for sure all summer long........caught and release hundreds of native rainbow.

What I really remember, was the fish trap, right by the small gas station, at the beginning of Avondale Road. Sockeye Salmon by the 10's of thousands......wonder if this run is still going......wow.......50 years ago......

Now live in an area that has gill netting 5 days a week.......soon all the native coho and native steelhead will be gone......from the Wynoochee, the Satsop, and all the small feeder streams......and we'll be just like many of the Seattle area rivers.........fish all gone!!!

"Worse day sport fishing, still better than the best day working"