For those who care...

[Clamman]

It is anticipated that there will be an estimated 300,000 upriver spring chinook returning this coming year. These are primarily hatchery stock of whick roughly 50% are adipose fin-clipped. Now for the very unpleasant news, NMFS and the tribes are holding to the agreement reached last year to be applied this coming year. To not crunch to many numbers, NMFS is going to only allow somewhere between 8-10% impact of ESA listed fish. This includes any non-hydropower mortality such as sport retention and release mortality, commercial retention and release mortality, shad fishing salmon release mortality, summer steelhead fishing salmon release mortality, tribal retention and release, and any select area sport or commercial impacts to name a few. The tribes only are willing to give .5% for the non-tribal fishers. That equates to sitting on the sidelines watching all those hatchery fish swim by. The ODFW/WDFW fish managers want 2%, which could give a March sport fishery and a potential selective fishery in April. The states are preparing to go to court over this, though the outcome is bleak. Hopefully it will go to an appellate court that will think a little clearer than what we have been used to.

With the Willamette expected to have a similar run as last year, one should expect a similar type of fishery. The only bright note in this whole dark mess, is that the Wind is thinking of increasing their daily limit up to 4 or 5 fish per day!!!

If any of the former means anything to anglers, write your congressperson. Express in a concise manner the inequality being applied and the fact that the fish are produced by hatcheries to be accessed by the public when there is an apparent excess. I hope this helps.

ISG

Thanks for the update ISG. That's grim, but not totally unexpected; particularly on the part of the Columbia Tribal Commission. It is unfortunate that the Fed. government, via the NMFS, sides with such a radical one sided interpretation! I hope that the state's lawsuit against the "Unfair Pair" gets us a least a 2% impact. Because it will be litigated under federal jurisdiction I think you could be right about a bleak outcome for sportsmen. THIS IS GROSSLY UNFAIR! I also completely agree with you that we need lots of letters sent to our Congressmen! Jennie has a link from the Ifish mainpage to a page of State Senators and Representatives. I have written letters. I have made several public internet posts protesting this rediculous 0.5% allocation for fish that we pay for via taxes, fishing licenses, and tax on fishing related good and services. I tried to organize a protest rally last spring at Cascade Locks. If appathetic sportfishers won't make a small sacrifice to attend a rally for your deserved rights, then at least give back a small amount of your time and write your Congressmen telling them that the Col. Tribal Comm. and NMFS Col. fall and spring salmon allocation agendas and mandates are very unfair. That we have paid for these fish. That Indian gillnets kill all Fed. ESA protected native fish that swim into them. That sportfishers can fish selectively by releasing all native fish with adipose fins intact so that over 90% of them can successfully spawn. That even a 2% allocation to non-Indian fishers is not enough to be fair to us, but 0.5% is unacceptable and enough to cause a significant voter backlash in future elections! Good numbers of letters mean something to our Congressmen. Great numbers of letters move them to action on our behalf! They can and will influence the Fed. factions that are in control of the NMFS. Very IMPORTANTLY, the Col. allocation issues aren't the only thing a letter campaign will affect. It can and will affect some Congressmen's input and voting on federal budgets for NW hatcheries! So please get going on this right away people. -- I also make a call for someone with time and leadership, from such as one of the Chapter Presidents of the Association of NW Steelheaders, to put together another attempt at a protest rally. It needs to be at the appropriate place and time, and given enough time and publicity to draw big numbers of fishermen. Liz Hamilton and Buzz Ramsey of NISA would be great to contact at Luhr Jensen in Hood River for info on the most effective way to go about this. They were enthusiastically helpful in suggestions they made to me last spring; it was just too short of notice for many and very unfortunately apathetic for many others. Let's take the opportunity and get after this one! - Steve Hanson (RT)


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Know fish or no fish. - RT