unfortunate bycatch

saw these on FB today, it was a friend of a friend and I cannot verify the validity... supposedly from a grays harbor area river, pretty sad


when we are fishing we are not allowed to leave our gear unattended... I cannot believe this is not also a rule for gill nets?

There are whitetail in GH?

Sad indeed. Hopefully this will make it's way to those that "matter" and put a little heat on those responsible.

Blacktail buck on the Chehalis above Oakville

Those who matter won't, and those responsible are immune from responsibility.

Not by catch. The Tribes have Hunting' Rights. That's part of their share

All it will take is for a child to die in one of those nets. Then the chit will hit the fan. Don't believe me? Just look at those sensors on your overhead garage door.

A busload of children could die in one of those nets and nothing would happen. Friggin injuns are above the law ya know. Until someone decides to take things into their own hands.

Just curious as to how a kid would get caught in a gill net. This isn't the time of year to be swimming,
.

Just curious as to how a kid would get caught in a gill net. This isn't the time of year to be swimming,
.

Same way a blacktail deer or wild steelhead die in gill nets. Wrong place at the wrong time.

Steelhead actually live in the water, deer cross the rivers by swimming all the time. Sure, wrong place wrong time but what river, with an active gill net fishery, has kids swimming in it upstream of the nets?

derelict nets is how kids can get caught in a net... any net can become derelict, especially unattended ones...

Not sure so much we can conclude from the pic, unless someone does a necropsy.

Did the deer die/drown by swimming into the net, or did it die by some other means and just floated downstream into the net? Can't tell by the pic.

Could have been shot, died as it swam across the river. Thanks for pointing that out.

his hoof is caught in the net in the 3rd pic... probably died as a result of being attacked by another animal because it couldn't get away...

it's as clear a case against unattended gillnets you'll ever see and you guys want to perform a necropsy.?. fer christ sake...

I had never thought about this before seeing these pics, but given how many deer, elk, beaver, otter, you name it cross our rivers, I'm surprised this (assuming the gillnet was the killer) doesn't happen more often. Maybe that's just because when they're fishing legally, the fisherfolk are actively present, which probably discourages a lot of wildlife from being present while the nets are in.

Or derelict kids?

A response from WDFW Enforcement:



"A Fish and Wildlife Police Sergeant talked with the reporting party and it was determined that the net was derelict and within the boundaries of the Chehalis Indian Reservation. The Sergeant reached out to the tribe and offered assistance in removing this net and any other nets that might be deployed. WDFW learned that tribal officers removed two nets so far."

For fuk sake, deer season is open and thousands get blown away every year. Hundreds more get run over by cars. Several thousand more probably die of natural causes. Looks like some critter had a decent meal as a result of whatever happened here, everyone needs to take a pill and chill. One deer here.

that isn't the point...

Who knew? Instead of spending thousands of dollars to hunt, all I had to do was get a hundred dollar net. I guess we really do play with our food.

I've had to do a double take a couple of times on the coast. There's a local strain where the threes points do sort of look like they have a whitetails rack. But the dark horns, little tuff of hair and the tail give them away. That and the fact they don't run like a dog.