Aunty has it right. The purpose of the 1-fish limit is to distribute the allocation among the widest group of anglers.

However, Keith's point is valid. The overall allocation remains the same regardless of the individual bag limit. Otherwise, a very small number of anglers could catch the majority of the fish. But that's called gillnetting......

Sorry, had to throw that in.

I don't always judge things on how it affects me--- I try to take a global view---- and keep your stinky chum away from me.

Amen Brother!!!

Kevin, only from a guides standpoint is a 1 fish limit helpful to your working day! 4 clients 4 fish and then its Miller Time!

Tons of great replies. keep them coming.

I'm not for or against a 1 or 2 fish limit. What ever is done needs to be best for the fish. Just for business sake, i'd prefer it stays at 1 fish, as it makes my day go that much quicker. I love to be on the water as much, and most of the time, more than anyone here. But when you are on the water everyday, it is kinda nice to get an early limit and get home to see my family.

My point is this.........

The same nubmer of fish are taken from the river with a two fish as a 1 fish. When I left the Dam on Sunday afternoon, the presure was still the same as wehn we got there, minus a few boats. The limit was one fish, so why were people still fishing. Because they had not caught there fish. All the fish that wanted to bite, had hit the bottom of boats and were dead. No more or less would have been killed by an increase in limit size. If everyone caught there 1 fish the river should have been empty of boats by the afternoon. It was still packed and as fast as you could catch a fish, it was being killed. The only way to harvest more fish than what was harvested would be if more fish wanted to bite. As long as you have bait in the water and they keep biting, it makes no difference how many the limit is set at.

There is one variable in the deal. Yes, some fisherman are better skilled at catching fish, but the level of skill needed to catch one at Bonneville is not that demanding. Kwikfish are a top producer, and most guys who spend a day up there are getting there fish. I agree, it does spread out the opportunity to other less fortunate anglers if the limit is one.

I believe the one fish limit was to spread the impacts, rather than burn them at the dam. Perhaps the limit should be two while there are few unmarked fish below Bonnie.
Once the encounter rate increases, I'd favor a limit reduction in the areas of the higher encounter rate.

Why use up all the allocation in such a small area in a short amount of time?

So we can hurry up and get on with crying about " more allocation " of course !!

Because no matter what, we gotta cry about something.. Is that not where this is really all headed anyway ??

No, not really. Not until you attemped to hijack the thread.


Think about the total number of fish that were taken............. 20,000 + finclipped fish. The fish were caught at the rate at which they would bite. At no point in time did you see any less effort to take fish from the Columbia river because of a 1 vs 2 fish limit. If you had witnessed a difference in teh number of boats of the water, then you might be able to say that everyone caught there limit and left the river open for someone else.

What I am getting at is this.....

If I guided the river and was efficient at what I did, I could run two trips a day and take doulbe the fish from the river, if they would cooperate and bite that good. Nothing illegal about it, but definatly going to use up more of the impacts. So by making the limit 1 fish, I am able to get more people into a fish rather than just one group. Now I've taken twice as many fish out of the river as the one fish limt was intented. Not only that, I created double the revenue. Wait, I jsut realized my buddies havn't yet had an opportunity to go out. Hey guys, I'll call ya when i'm done with that early limit and I'll get you into a few fish too.
Now can you see where I'm goin with this.
You shorten the day with a 1 fish limit and now you've got time on your hands, so now you can get more people into a fish rather than just getting your 2 a piece, you might let 2 guys out of you boat, and pick up three more. Why do that. Because you are only allowed one fish. The guys in the boat with 1 fish drove their cars and are ready to go home. The bite is pretty good, so you know you will only be out there a little while, might as well get a few more guys in the boat. I know one guy who ran 12 guys throug his boat one day. All of them took home fish. If it were a 2 fish limit, maybe it would take a while longer to get two fish, and thus create a bigger opportunity to stay on the boat longer. Less people to cycle through the waters is less fish that will die. Limit the opportuntiy on something as good as the Springer fishery in the Big C. and you will see a huge impact on pressure.

The only way to relieve the number of fish taken out of a river in one day is to limit the number of days it is open. When you have an umlimited supply of fisherman and a limited supply of fish, it is a no brainer. The amount of fish to get taken in a day will not change until there are no more lines in the water.

As long as there are empty tags on the water, you have done nothing to slow the harvest rate by making it a 1 fish limit.

Nobody's hijacking your thread. Some just think your points not valid.

No chance of just saying " wow, that was pretty good for everybody this year ". Does there HAVE to be a problem all the time.

Kevin you provide your reasoning as linear and everybody is equaly talented at hooking and landing fish (just like B-run said already). If you prove your point with actual data from consecutive years where there was a difference in limits you might sell your point. Data cant be you and your other guide buddy. That would be a small biased sample.

BTW B-run I think we might get the very first part of the run with the water being in good shape. I'm all licensed up and chomping at the bit. Cant wait. I love to hear all this whining about a bunch of fish when all I want is to catch a couple.

Why did I read this. fk

B-RUN, My testimony was for a 65% allocation for sportfishers, and is a matter of the public record.

I took some heat for supporting the leave the unmarked fish in the water rule. As far as I am concerned our impact should be reduced to eight percent to reflect the newer handling rule. We would be best served by minimizing our impacts on our wild fish stocks IMHO.

Hans

It's about spreading the love...and if you can fish three sets of clients in a day and they all take home a fish, you can't spread the love much more than that...

Virtually everyone else out there is just fishing for one boat's worth of limits, so this definitely will extend the season, too, which is just another way of spreading the love...

More people can get their one per day, and more people over all will get to catch a fish or two, and the season will last longer to accomodate that...

Fish on...

Todd

Please don't let me to read an explanation on the theory about reduction of boat traffic with a 2 fish limit.

Probably wouldn't change the traffic one bit, but if it did, I suspect it would increase the traffic a bit, rather than reduce it.

Fish on...

Todd

Besides, people like me aren't willing to drive all the way to the CR to combat fish for two fish let alone one. But two will probably sway some who were on the fence.

Not my intent. That's what I got out of one of Kevin's dribbles that gave me a fricken headache while trying to decifer it.

I'm out.

I dont know if I totally understand everything kevin is trying to say, but I think his basic point is entirely valid.

It seemed clear to me that the one-fish limit was imposed primarily in the hopes of extending the season. All I hear Kevin saying is that this strategy clearly failed this year, and will probably always fail in most fisheries. I agree. Biters will get caught either way.

I also agree that the one-fish limit spreads out opportunity, but I not sure that was the main driver for this season's regulations. Plus, I think part of what Kevin is also saying is that it promotes opportunity only to extent that is spreads the catch out among a larger number of people each day. But it fails to provide opportunity for a longer season because the catch rates likely remain unchanged.

Personally, I dont know what I think about the one-fish limit yet. I had major surgery on the my shoulder in march so I wasn't even able to fish springers on the columbia. I think I would support going to one-fish limits in more of our fisheries to spread the catch out among more people, but I would like to see 'party' rules continue to allow people to continue fishing after tagging out. Maybe make it like sturgeon fishing where you can still c&r after tagging a fish. I think that's where the real problem lies for the future. It's going to be a tough pill to swallow when people start proposing that once you tag your first fish, you on a boat ride the rest of the day. Maybe, with all the people and demand for the resource, it will eventually come to that, but I hope we are not the path to get there soon.

Dom

Sorry I can't always get into words what i am thinking. Dom did a great job.

The same number of fish were caught and kept in the same period of time as if it were a two fish limit. Bingo!
Thus any extension of the season was not going to happen based on a good fishery/ catch rates. The reason fishing was so good is because there was a ton of fish in the river. The only way to extend the season is to have closed it more than 1 day a week.