I was impressed by the presidents message in the latest issue of the Friends of the Cowlitz Riverwatch it goes as follows

It has come to my attention that there are some cold water conservation groups and individuals within those groups who are not giving their whole hearted support to the "Ban All Nets" initiative. Friends of the Cowlitz board of Directors voted in January to support "Ban" and to do all we can to help gather signatures and help publicize the initiative. As president of Friends of the Cowlitz I would hope that each and every member of our organization will do all they can to see that the "BAN" initiative is successful. Help gather signatures, and if you can afford to, donate funds to be used to help counter the commercial fishing industries anit "BAN" publicity campaign that is sure to come. The office staff and volunteers helping have already filled and returned numerous petitions to the "BAN" office and recieved more petitions to fill. Some of the individual board members have donated funds to "BAN" . All I ask is that each member of FOC do whatever you can to help get this initiative on the ballot in November, and when you know it is on the ballot start campaigning to get it passed into law.
Anyone who saw the coho runs returning to our rivers this past fall should know what can happen when nets are taken out of the equation. Canada didn't let the commercials or the sport fishers fish on coho around Vancouver Island last summer or fall, so our fish that are normally intercepted by the Canadian commercial fleet were allowed to return to Washington waters relatively unscathed. And because of low run size predictions for coho, Washington commercial fishers were not allowed to fish on these fish either. Consequently we saw some returns to some rivers that were reminiscent of what we had returning to our rivers thirty years ago. The Cowlitz was a good example. The run had been predicted to be below escapement levels ( 7000 fish). But what showed up was well over 22,500 at the hatchery and lots of fish caught that weighed between sixteen and twenty pounds. A far cry from the normal six to eight pound coho we have become accustomed to since the dams were built and the commercial nets took all the large fish. Think about it ! wz
They are on-line at http://members.tripod.com/friendsofthecowlitz/index.html or E-mail foc@localaccess.com