Astoria Sturgeon Meeting

[roadsend]

Dispite the lack of local publicity the Astoria meeting last night was fairly well attended. The topics discussed included items similar to those in the Vancouver Sturgeon Meeting topic already on this board. The basic message appears to be that there are only X-numbrer of fish to harvest, who gets them? Some items not emphasized in the Vancouver meeting included: mortality and how to reduce it - how many fish are lost to draggers, poaching, catch and release of undersize and especially oversize fish. Some suggested solutions to unneccessary mortality included gear restrictions for the oversize fishery, outlawing stainless hooks, requiring smaller hooks, cutting leaders rather than pulling hooks on deeply hooked fish. I got the general feeling that our experts don't know much about sturgeon mortality. Some folks discussed the idea of including Cowlitz, Willamette and other tributary fish in the quota as they are part of the same population.
A topic that was also discussed at some length was the proposal of splitting the sport allocation between upper and lower river. Folks who gave the impression of being "in the know" as much as said that the split was politically pretty much a done deal. If this is correct, it is unfortunate; as it has the potential of furthur splitting recreational fisherman. It very clearly has nothing to do with sturgeon conservation.
I am sure that someone with access to the official meeting minutes will post them before long.