Commercial fishing won a big battle in the war over the Columbia River spinger allocation. At the last minute Oregon caved in to the commercials even though they were leaning towards favoring the sports catch all along. The WDFW, of course, will side with commercials as they always do. The end result will be more commercial netting and less sports opportunity on this popular fishery. Since the spring Chinook bring the highest prices for the commercials they can piggyback on the sensational fish farming scare of the past week to really promote "wild" fresh salmon. The NET result will be the possibility of another year of commercial catch rates going way over predictions and then sports seasons being curtailed due to the "emergency". The other NET result will be more killing of ESA listed fish including the fragile steelhead stocks.

Funny isn't it how much attention was given to the study showing that farmed salmon are bad and how little attention the studies showing the potential and real harm to Columbia River stocks get.

The argument made by the commercials was that they had to spend alot of money on the new tangle nets and they need a way to recoup that investment. Geez I spent a fortune on my fishing gear too but can't use that argument to get more time on the water.
The commercial bias is alive and well and MUST be stopped. Get out to the North of Falcon meetings coming up and make it to as many WDFW commission meetings as possible.

Dave

From what I understand, the meeting that sealed our fate was in Portland and due to the airport being closed down nost of the sports representatives were unable to attend

Looks like others are just today discovering this story

What makes anyone think that ODFW will listen any more than WDFW? Or that any legislator (with the exception of Ike) gives a damn about what sport fishermen think? We are going to pay whatever it costs to fish anyway, and we are going to go fishing whether there are good numbers of high quality springers for us to catch or not. Who here is not going to spend every spare minute, and nickel, fishing for something, whether we have springers, sockeye, or not? So our arguement rings kind of hollow in the end, unless we just vote all the bass-terds out. That's what I intend to do - my next letter is an ultimatum to our beloved polys - introduce and/or support legislation to get the commercial fishery off of any run that can be fully expolited at considerably more benefit to the state by the sport fishery, or I and everybody I talk to votes you out

If someone can please post a schedule or e-mail me a schedule of when and where the meetings are I will sureley attend with anyone else who wants to go.
Peace
Superfly

I think there is one in Olympia on Sat.

Can anyone post a link where the info. can be read? How did you come about this info? Has it been printed in the media yet and made public? I'd like to read the info. and chuckle over the lame excuse the departments come up with to defend their actions.

Welcome to the Pacific Northwest........home to fisheries great and small that will never realize their full sport potential. Pathetic!

Eric check your mail

Please see my post in this thread for a quick easy way to send an e-mail to your legislator, asking him or her to put some pressure on the people making this decision. I have a link to the page that can get your person's e-mail address, and text that you can clip out and send them. Take you two minutes, tops. Please check it out.

Just did it, thanks Silver,(although it took me considerably longer)Computer illiterate!!!

This is not a done deal yet. WDF&W have always stuck by the commercial netters and ODF&W has leaned toward helping the sportfishing entity. They were studying 5 options for splitting the 2% Fed ESA impact (determines allocation) on Columbia springers between the commercials and sporties. They wound up being pressured into a switch around from last years allocations to favor the netters. But it's not stamped yet! The meeting in Olympia and in Oregon City on Feb 5th may still swing the decide ODF&W vote back in favor of the sportfishermen (who pay for these hatchery fish, I might add).

Of course the Indian netters get a 13% impact for their "50-50" allocation. But that outrage is another whole big story!

Spawnout was right on with his post above. Write letters to the two state's Reps and legislators. Tell them a couple hundred thousand votes are finally going to swing against them if they keep siding with the commercial netters, instead of on the side of saving wild fish and on the side of sport fishers that pay by far the most per capita toward hatchery funding. Like he posted, it only takes a few moments. Much less time than tying up a few leaders! Washington reps have the most need for a wake up call. Here ya go:

Federal Senator
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Senator Patty Murray (Democrat-WA)
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510-0001
Phone: (202) 224-2621
Fax: (202) 224-0238
WebSite: http://murray.senate.gov/
E-Mail : http://murray.senate.gov/email/index.cfm

Senator Maria Cantwell (Democrat-WA)
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510-0001
Phone: (202) 224-3441
Fax: (202) 228-0514
WebSite: http://cantwell.senate.gov/
E-Mail : http://cantwell.senate.gov/contact/index.html

Federal Representative
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Representative Brian Baird (Democrat-03)
United States House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-3536
Fax: (202) 225-3478
WebSite: http://www.house.gov/baird/
E-Mail : http://www.house.gov/baird/zipauth.htm

State Senator
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Senator Joseph Zarelli (Republican-018)
P.O. Box 40418
Olympia, WA 98504-0418
Phone: (360) 786-7634
Fax: (360) 786-7173
WebSite: http://www.leg.wa.gov/senate/members/senmem18.htm
E-Mail : zarelli_jo@leg.wa.gov

State Representative
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Representative Tom Mielke (Republican-018)
P.O. Box 40600
Olympia, WA 98504-0600
Phone: (360) 786-7850
Fax: (360) 786-1066
WebSite: http://www.leg.wa.gov/house/members/d18_1.htm
E-Mail : mielke_th@leg.wa.gov

Representative Ed Orcutt (Republican-018)
P.O. Box 40600
Olympia, WA 98504-0600
Phone: (360) 786-7812
Fax: (360) 786-1066
WebSite: http://www.leg.wa.gov/house/members/d18_2.htm
E-Mail : orcutt_ed@leg.wa.gov

------------------------------------------------------------------------
US Representatives
http://www.oregon.gov/index.cfm?CurrPID=840

US Senators
http://www.oregon.gov/index.cfm?CurrPID=839

Ok I just e-mailed both Senators and my local District Reps. Get involved!



BD

ttt

Just a reminder:

A personal letter is equal to 1,000 votes to a politician. An email is easier but not nearly as effective..It is this kind of communication that we really need to accomplish. It is tough to find the time for some but boy is it effective.

The sports fishing community has simply got to unite around the issue of commercial bias in this state. I personally feel bad for some of the old timers who have a long family history of commercial fishing and I wish there was enough fish for them to continue but there simply is not.

Catch and release is the future of sports fishing. You cannot successfully release fish from nets and expect them to live. Even the admitted mortality is WAY UP THERE for the netters. Now they are asking for an exemption to be allowed a mortality level 3TIMES what they had to start with.

ARE YOU ALL LISTENING? It is the mortality issue that you shoud key on here. The state already knows that sports fishing brings in more money to the state and they already know that we hate commerical fishing...they don't so you get nowhere with that argument.
What can make them look really foolish and biased though is pointing to the extremely high mortality of ESA fish. How can they argue? All that can happen is that they are exposed for being irresponsible.

We need every one to take the time to write a letter to your politician and to the commission. Hopefully some of you can show up in Olympia tomorrow. I would be there in the front row if it weren't for the boat show.

My letter:

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife recently made a decision to allocate half of the havestable Columbia River spring chinook return to non-Tribal gillnetters in the lower river. Harvest of these chinook using gillnets results in twice the mortality of released wild fish than harvest using sportfishers, while returning many times less money per fish to the ailing Washington economy. Moreover, gillnet harvest at the rates WDFW is proposing will result in death to 7% of the wild ESA listed steelhead run. This travesty will reverse recovery efforts and is totally unacceptable. There is more than enough sport fishing effort on the Columbia to harvest all the available spring chinook in the lower river, and sportfishers rarely encounter steelhead while fishing with salmon gear. Moreover, since the Tribal fishery has been awarded 13% of the allowable ESA spring chinook impact, and the non-Tribal fishery only 2%, it seems that more than enough commercially caught spring chinook will be available to satisfy market needs. More non-Tribal commercial fish will just lower the value of the Tribal market further. It seems far better for both the economy and the resource for sports fishing to be employed exclusively to harvest the non-Tribal allocation of Columbia spring chinook.

I would really like you to give some attention to this matter, and to contact Dr. Jeff Koenings, WDFW Director, to encourage him to make the right resource allocation decision. Hundreds of thousands of sportfishing Washington voters will be watching how this goes, and will remember who was on the side of the resource at voting time.

Thanks for your attention to this matter,

Well stated Bob!

h ere is my letter to mrs. murray.
hello,
this email is in regards to unfair fish allocation on the columbia...every year the commercial fishers get a higher allocation than sport fishers and we the sport fishers bring more to the local economies of washington state than they do, by far.. we need senators and congressman who really care about pacific salmon... they are a good indicator of how the environment is doing, there is to much bycatch of wild stealhead in the nets and wild salmon in the nets..they do need eliminated.. who will i and the ton of sportmen in washington vote for ?...someone who actually cares about the fisheries in this wonderful state,not for people who are in it for there own gain...how do you stand on this issue? thanks for any reply, and btw, no need to be "politically correct" im not about politics, i want real answers.. thanks, jerry