Talk to your neighbors, your fellow workers and other fishermen/women while you fish. We need this to pass. For years nobody has paid any attention to us. (the majority by the way of people who use the resource) This is our chance to be heard. If you do nothing else, Vote for I-696. Keep making signs CedarR.

[This message has been edited by Bruce (edited 09-30-1999).]

Lanny Pillatos, president of the Puget Sound Gillnetters Association, called the initiative a product of
greed by sportsmen, and "a total, absolute waste of money.

"The money that is spent . . . by both groups (commercial fishermen and their opponents) . . . could be
put together and spent on enhancement and to raise more fish," he said.

Pillatos said it "is a few select people in a few user groups that are backing it, and no one else.Ê I don't
see any environmentalists or anyone else.Ê When you've got your own governor and a Department of
Fisheries that are against it, who's in support?"

MMOUSE,

Do you think anyone here cares what the gillnetter's mouthpiece has to say? Gee, what a surprise that he'd speak negatively about I-696, true or not.

If the state and the Gov. had managed the resource properly, this initiative would not be on the ballot. But they've failed miserably, so therefore we can take things into our own hands. And when you see I-696 pass by a 60/40 margin, you'll see what a huge lie it is that only a small group supports this initiative.

MMOUSE by talking anti-696 crap here, you're just wasting the earth's oxygen. Go to the gillnetter's home page, they'll love you over there. And they'll also tell you you're in the majority.........never mind that it's all BS.

YES ON 696........YES ON 696 !!!!!!!!!


Fish on.......

I hope BAN gets a heckuva message going soon. I live on the coast and the "anti's" are already delivering their message condemning the initiative. Their word is spreading fast!

I've not heard any pro-BAN publicity over here at all and unless they(we) start delivering a strong message of our own, the vote will probably be heavy against-at least on the coast.

Yeah. I hear the Aberdeen press is anti. Need some locals to email em and ask for fair coverage. The good part is that if sportfishermen vote for it, it will have a good chance. We need to email every radio,TV and newspaper and express our views. We can win.

Tom Nelson, I-696 spokesman, was interviewed on the Dave Ross talk show(KIRO-AM)today. The program lasted 60 minutes and reached an estimated 27,000 households, cars, etc. Only one commercial fisherman called in and he did a very poor job of promoting their cause. Everyone else who called in supported BAN. Tom also appeared on KOMO-TV's 6:30 News this evening. As usual, he did an excellent job of getting the message out and it cost the I-696 campaign nothing. A 30 second, prime-time TV commercial costs $10,000 each time it runs. Radio ads run $35 to $250 for a 30 second exposure. The Yes on 696 campaign is not going to get the huge corporate contributions that the antis are getting. If you haven't made a donation, the address and a pledge card can be obtained by clicking the BAN link found on the "River Reports" page at this website. If you have made a donation, I can assure you that every dollar is being spent where it will garner the most votes. Unfortunately, the dollars may not reach the most remote regions of the state. That's where your personal effort can really have an impact. Don't be too alarmed at the negative press coverage. The newspapers don't like to share their power to intimidate politicians and influence legislation with the public. You only have freedom of the press if you own a newspaper. Challenge them with your letters and your emails. Change will be made by people who are passionate.

I have been seeing campaign signs for vote no on I-696 along the road sides starting this week. It makes my stomach turn to see people not understanding how important this initiative is to our future. I have also started making signs by hand and putting them up on busy streets. If you can't afford to donate to the BAN fund, I personally challenge each person reading this message to make 2 signs this weekend and put them along a busy road on public land....It will cost you $5 and 10 minutes time. If it isnt worth that to you, then you are wasting your time even reading this website
.
YES I-696....YES I-696
.
e-mail me and let me know if you are up to it
fishman41@hotmail.com

[This message has been edited by RANDY (edited 10-02-1999).]

Randy, Your pep talk inspired me to put my last sign together. I've yet to see any signs pro or con in the Renton, Maple Valley, Black Diamond area. There's a good chance the DOT would pick them up if they're put out too far ahead of election day. I've heard the Westport area, Tacoma/Gig Harbor, and Fishermen's Terminal are covered with No on 696 signs. All I can say is our incumbent councilman had the most, biggest, and best-looking signs up for his primary race and he lost the election. The commercials don't have an issue and are losing every debate. I guess the signs are part of the way they hope to buy the election. A lot of the Yes on 696 signs went out of the office late last week. Hopefully, we'll start seeing them along the roadways soon.

[This message has been edited by CedarR (edited 10-02-1999).]

You guys are pathetic.Why don't you just come out and tell everyone just what a freakin' fish grab this whole thing is?You come on all high and mighty about how this is going to "save the fish for the future", and then you talk about the money difference between commercial caught fish and sport caught fish.I wish someone would tell me just HOW this inititive is gonna put one more fish on the spawning beds.Anyone ever heard of "forgone opportuntity"??? The Boldt decision(may he burn in Hell) says that,if the non-tribal commercials can't harvest their share of the HALF that is split between commercial and sport fisherman,the the tribes are entitled to those fish.All this is gonna do,should it pass,is open up the rivers to even MORE netting.For Christ's sake,the BAN website,for anyone who cares to look at it,shows how bad nets are by showing a fish dead in a gillnet that no non-tribal fisherman would have ever been able to set.What a bunch of hypocrites...

Quit your whining. You have taken much more than your share in your life time. Nobody "owes" you anything. You can still harvest. Two per day just like every other non-tribal fisherman. By the way...that is two FISH per day. Not two birds.

BigPhish, even if the Indians do end up taking what has been "your" fish, that's preferable to you comm's. netting the fish in the ocean, even though the Indian nets aren't very "selective" either. I've already given my 2 cents worth in the past about the advantages of terminal/selective comm. fishing vs. ocean/net fishing. Besides, I'm not an authority on I-696 but I haven't read anything that would stop you comm's. from lobbying the State to allow you to fish the rivers using devices that allow you to release non-targeted species. This comes from someone who is very seriously considering becoming a comm. fisherman in S.E. Ak. next year- troller, not netter. ( Sorry guys, I'll be harvesting a few of your kings, but I just found out the silvers caught by S.E. comm's. are nearly 100% Alaskan fish)

[This message has been edited by AkBill (edited 10-05-1999).]

BigPhish7:
This is Not a fish grab. The comments below are about salmon not even mentioning the bottomfish that have been over harvested.
1. The harvest is too high and escapement goals are too low.
2. Maybe the harvest will be in the rivers where the run size is better determined.
This way there is a decreased chance endangered fish are incidentally caught. This will put more of the endangered runs on the spawning beds.
3. I'm sorry some people will lose their jobs but I've lost jobs before, you just start over. More jobs were lost when the salmon sport season was wrecked by overharvest and nobody cared about that. Look at Sekiu.
4. Yes, the native americans will still be harvesting but thats the another problem to deal with. Again this is the first step. There will be others.
5.The sports harvest puts more money(jobs,taxes) into the state with LESS fish harvested.
6. I think we agree to disagree.

A sportsmen's fish grab? A conservation measure? That's a "Tastes good, less filling" argument. Who cares??? Lots of non-fishers, birders,enviro-types, and ex-commercial fishermen signed the I-696 petitions and are supporting its campaign financially. I doubt very much that the tribes would exercise "forgone opportunity" in the face of ESA listings and in light of the fact we are going to give up destructive commercial fishing practices to restore salmon runs and rebuild bottomfish populations. BTW, In one and a half years of volunteering for habitat restoration projects in three river basins, I never met a commercial fisherman, and my supervisors stated they had never met a commercial fisherman. I then called Mid-Puget Sound Enhancement to find out if their experience was the same. I was told they not only couldn't get commercials on the project sites, but they couldn't get them to attend the board meetings where they held positions. This was occuring during the I-640 campaign when the commercial fishing industry was telling everyone that habitat restoration was the only way we could bring salmon back. No, I'm not going to feel like a hypocrite when I vote Yes on I-696.

Big Phish,
You got to plug in buddy, be a part of the solution, not a part of the problem. The way things are done today are wrong, you know it, I know it, we all know it. But the almighty dollar has caused alot of people to turn a deaf ear. I-696 at least turns a few heads and hits a few pocketbooks and puts us on the right track. Be a part of the future, not the past. Now is not the time to be a buffalo hunter.

Its realy a shame BigPhish7 that a bunch of part time gillnetters most of whom use their fishing income as a tax write off to continue to insist on using equipment that cannot tell the difference between a targeted species of fish or an endangered species of fish, bird or whatever. I guess when this initiative passes you will have to go back to using a hook and line and actually releasing something alive for a change (I know this is a new concept for you but it actually makes you feel good to release something alive)I worked with my father for a couple of years up at neah bay in the late 70s we commercial fished with downriggers we never had to throw a single dead fish back. Have you ever released a live fish from a gill net?