Political pull, hatcheries, harvest........

I think we should re-think our goals..........

careful what you ask for.........

Sounds like some ones fishing here!

He makes a great point, other than selective harvest abilities... Without gillnets what's the point of hatchery fish? The gillnetters political ability has slowed an "all natural" approach to fishing. Without gillnets we're headed towards no hatchery fish...

It's a catch-22 in my book!

Keith

glad to see someone thinking here......not trying to stir the pot, just thinking outloud, again.....I feel we should be VERY careful what we ask for...nothing is as it seems!!!!!!!

There are no gillnets on trout lakes yet they are still planted. The precedent is set to continue providing sport fisherman with hatchery fish to harvest when commercials are not around.

Keep dreamin, what commercial value does a planted trout in a lake have???
Wake up......

Dumb people will buy anything...

you mean, will buy into anything...

Plenty, to the businesses that rely on the folks trying to catch those little stockers.

Who?? sportsmen whorehouse, cabelas, yeah they are real active in the powers of fisheries mgmt..................

Bottom line...Who has the most influence on anadromous fish harvest????

I'm perfectly fine with not having hatcheries. If it means no netting then I'm for it...

WOW........did not realise some sportsmen were this lost......are you for real, how long have you been a fisherman........no netting means no sport fishing.......in the REAL world anyway.............................

We can all dream about the day that there is no commercial harvest and everyone can go to the river and grab a limit ..............yeah, right................

Gee the same thing happenned to the Coho fishery in Tillamook Bay. No gillnet coho fishery, no more hatchery coho.

What bothers me is the signs I saw up all over the Sportsman Shows:

Save Our Wild and Native Fish

What about our HATCHERY FISH?????????

Different strokes for different folks.
Each system requires and deserves different guidelines.
The thought of removing all hatcheries or, all rivers need hatchery fish is painting a very complex painting with a very broad brush.
That is, for lack of a better word… stupid.

Very interesting isn't it...

I've fished through many of years and can remember some phenomenal fisheries only to have hatchery plants cut... The sad thing is it was done to help replenish the true wild stocks. Now we catch a handful of wilds vs a few back then.. Think about it, the Cowlitz hatchery steelhead are slowly on the way out too.

Now when you talk about salmon we're on a slow and windy road to hell..

How much do you want to bet that "if" and when the gillnets get yanked from the Columbia the hatchery silver plants in the Lower Columbia will be on their way out too... Any takers?? I mean seriously, why are they planted in the first place?? Is it the annual snag fests we see on all the rivers??

Keith

Some very good points guys, we really need to be careful with this whole situation, I feel if it is a hatchery based system, i.e. cowlitz, lewis etc. it should be managed as that, and to its fullest potential, keep thinkin.......

Here's what people have to decide. In the columbia the limiting factor that closed the fishing below Bonniville was the incidental impacts of ESA listed salmon. To allow better opportunities in the future at surplus hatchery chinook we have 2 options allow Wild chinook to continue to decline to a point of no return and then beef up the hatchery plants for both sport and commercial use. Number 2 is to get down to the real issue's and fix the habitat that Wild Salmon are lacking today. If you increase the number of wild Salmon your incidental impact takes longer to reach and your able to harvest more hatchery salmon in the process. And maybe you are able to remove the ESA listing at some point. Commercial and Sport fisherman want the same thing that is more opportunity at those available hatchery salmon. So I can see them being an ali in the process. Valuable time is being wasted fighting the columbia gillnetters in what looks to me like a pure allocation grab while that limiting factor remains the same. I would prefer option 2 but it really looks like a difficult task that most are not willing to take.

You can fix all the habitat you want, but until Alaska and Canada ocean commercial fisherman are finished, you aren't going to get any sustainable numers coming back at all. A good year would depend upon wether or not their nets were out when that certain rivers return was swimming past. Hell, you can even see that happen with hatchery returns. Looks at the Kalama and the Lewis this year compared to last. Hmmm, wonder why the difference, well those runs were already sold from a commercial boat in Alaska or Canada a couple of months ago. Probably those runs were just bycatch from bottom trawlers.