gillnet

[fishon]

I am new to fishing for salmon on the columbia and I keep on reading about gillnet. What is it?

[dawhunt]

Its a boat that has a gillnet that stretches
almost all the way across a river and catches everything that swims into it.Right now its a fact of life and we have to live with it but hopefully they will soon be a thing of the past !!!!!I'm not really sure but,I belive the nets are either monofilament or nylon they kill whatever they catch.Its too late now because there season is over but there was at least 25 gillnet boats tied up at the Camas,Washougal port ( boat launch),they were fishing from just above Washougal to Beacon Rock for two nights from 6:00 p.m. till 6:00 a.m. thats a lot of nets in 20 miles of river.
Bob

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Bob Dawson

[This message has been edited by dawhunt (edited 08-24-2000).]

[NorthRiverS]

Dawhunt,
In your post you state that you hope gillnets will be a thing of the past. I do too, but is there really any possibility of this? Give me some hope.

[fishon]

What do they do with the fish?

[Gizmo Man]

Concerning hope. In Wash, there has been two initiatives on the ballot in the last 5 years to do away with the nets. Unfortunately, they both failed due to the gillnetters lobby and effectively convincing the voters in counties not boarding the columbia River that their livlehood would be impacted if the initive to ban nets passed. They did not spend there time in the PDX airwaves so we in the Van/Pdx area did not see all the ads against the ban.
The counties such as Clark did overwhelming pass the initiative, but it failed state wide.

It was also observed that even if the ban was passed in Wash, it effectively would not impact the gillnets as it would still be legal to gillnet from the Or. side of the river and the boats would just launch from there.

The point being is that we as sportspeople must unite into a single voice and stop the bickering between the sports groups and attack the issue on both sides of the Columbia with $$$$$'s. The Wa initiative failed due to appathy on the part of the sportspeople. We did not come through with the contributions to fight the gillnetters money. Next time, if there is one, we all need to help and not complain that someone else should fix the problem.


Giz...

[bswim]

What really ticked me off about the last "Ban The Nets Iniative" was people wouldn't vote for it because it wouldn't effect the Indians. Like that makes sense. Just because our presidential candidates aren't going to turn this country into a utopia isnt going to stop a single person from voting. AAAAGGGGGHHHHHH!!! WAKE UP AND GET A ******* CLUE!!!!! Listen people we can't get everything at once. One thing I have to say about the Indians, they are doing more to stabilize/increase our runs than the state ever thought of. How many hatcheries has the state pulled funding on? Never have heard of a indian hatchery being shut down. You can make the enviroment statement about how hatcheries are the reason our runs are weak. But we all know tha isn't why the state closes them. Its because they don't give a rip. It cracks me up down on the Nisqually people ***** about the indians gillnetting the river, if it weren't for the indians there wouldn't be any salmon in that river. Don't get the wrong idea now, I am by no means an indian symphasizer. It ticks me off that they have all their special rights as much as the next guy. Up above greenwater they have their ancestral rights to hunt the elk, There never were any elk up there until the 1940's when weyerhauser brought them in for the mill workers to have soemthing to hunt. Sorry didn't mean to go meandering off on a tangent.

[This message has been edited by bswim (edited 08-26-2000).]

[This message has been edited by bswim (edited 08-26-2000).]