Bill Monroe's column today.....

[1pump]

Anybody read Bill's column today?

Sunday Oregonian 7/13 (http://www.oregonlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/sports/1058012050327120.xml?oregonian?yspcbm)

I wonder what the guy really did? :shrug:

I was gonna go fishing tonight, but my fishing partner is out of town, and I need him to turn in the fish tomorrow morning 'cuz I'll probably have to work.
Back in the day, we could register at one station, and if we fished past that station's closing time, we could check the fish in at another station closer to home the next day.
The checkers knew we were straight up and were accomodating.
But then a few people abused it, so no more of that. :mad:
I can understand why the rules are in place, but the pikeminnow don't always go on the bite when the stations are open. :rolleyes:

[Riverkeeper]

Holy Cow, he made $143,436!? That's a lot of pikeminnows. Actually, its 35,859 pikeminnows at 4 bucks a piece. I wonder how many hours that took. How many do you guys catch in an average outing?

[1pump]

The guy I fish with made a little over $11,000 in 2001, but he was unemployed and had lots of time to fish.
He got 96 over last Sat & Sun while I was working. :depressed:

Actually, it's $6 a fish over 400 turned in, and last year it got bumped to $8 temporarily.

[Bill Monroe]

I think he also was fishing out of the legal zone. I did the math and he must've caught a couple of tagged fish, too...

[RvW]

I say as long as the pikeminnows are being exterminated, who cares if he was registered or not?

Interesting story. I have one problem though (with the facts and not the column):

Why would biologists catch, tag, and than RELEASE pikeminnows on a grande scale or regular basis??

Catch em and kill 'em! or dump 'em in a lake somewhere. Can someone explain the benefit to an ongoing study that seems to waste the time and defy the objective by catching them, tagging them and releasing them alive?

[Pete]

... and why should it matter how big they are? The little ones grow up, don't they?

[Chris Nordling]

COTR-

Probably one of the main reasons for catch and release is for population estimations. These fish could never be completely eradicated, the are indigenous (native) to our Columbia River and some of it's tribs.

The goal of the program is control the population as best as we can, not eliminate it.

Biologists need these tools (capture& marks, re-capture) to make sure that proper seasons,bag limits,slot limits etc... to allow the continuation of this fishery for pikeminnow.

Chris :cool:

[David Johnson]

Actually, those fish are tagged and released with tags worth $$$$. It's an incentive to get people to fish for the ********* trying to catch the tagged ones.

[STGRule]

Okay, some facts.
1) Pikeminnow are a native fish. They are not being "exterminated", the population is being pruned.
2) Smolts are not the only thing they eat, it isn't even the major part of their diet.
3) The reason the bounty is on the large fish is that fish species are a larger part of their diet than smaller ones. Therefore you can weed out a few big fish and get a better net amount of smolt potentially "saved". And it appears to be working.

Now another little detail. Walleye (an introduced alien species to the system) actually eat more smolt per fish than Pikeminnow do. The only saving grace at this point is that there are fewer of them so the total smolt loss is smaller than from Pikeminnow. That will change in the future as both WDFW and ODFW are managing walleye for a trophy (read big, honking, smolt sucking critters) fishery and they have spread throughout the Columbia and Willamette system.
Please remember that Pikeminnow are native fish. Their numbers are artificially high because of the dams on the Columbia (big lakes instead of flowing water). The dams on the Willamette are fewer and further (farther?) apart and don't pool up the river as much as the Columbia dams. The population of Pikeminnow on the Willamette may be at historic levels at this point. Remember that they are not trying to exterminate the Pikeminnow, just reduce the portion of the population that is most likely to be responsible for the smolt losses. Of course, if we had a natural system, we wouldn't have to deal with all this.

And yah, what they said. :grin:

[ 07-13-2003, 06:54 PM: Message edited by: STGRule ]

[1pump]

I think he also was fishing out of the legal zone. I did the math and he must've caught a couple of tagged fish, too...<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">From what the ********* inspectors have told me, the Yakima River is a chronic problem area for pikeminnow perpetrators. Specifically those who fish in a tributary and claim them as CR fish.

[Jerry Dove]

Hey Bill, you ought to do a story on the Coho out of Garibaldi. Give me a call and I will show you first hand. Limits in a couple of hours. One big problem, "about 60 to 70% wild". Takes one hell of a lot of bait. Some really big fish, both wild and hatchery. Friday, four of us limited in about 4 hours, 8 keepers, Hatchery fish, about 25 - 30 wild fish. Some thing is not right here. Jerry

[drhall99]

JD,

Or something is very right.

D.

[Gun Rod Bow]

Pardon me for being out of context, but I can't resist.

I love how everyone (including STG) seems to love the idea of "pruning" the population of *********, but squeal like mashed cats at the metion of reducing coyote, bear and cougar populations to benefit populations of animals that sportsmen also like to consume.

There, I'm done.

[drhall99]

GRB,

Baby ********* aren't cute and fuzzy. Seriously though, for me, it's the level of overpopulation that puts ********* into the MUST KILL category.

JMO,
D.

(edited for spelling)(again).

[ 07-14-2003, 08:51 AM: Message edited by: drhall99 ]

[GutshotApe]

Because the ********* population is much higher than it was before the dams went in. The dams created the artificially high ********* population.