Poll; a quick poll on gillnetting

[glassblower]

I was reading the thread "the power of the internet" and was very intrested to know what the average Ifisher thinks of changing how commercial fish are taken. I understand that the gillnetters are a larg voice in getting funding for the hatcherys. But at the same time I think there is plenty of human knowledge on how to harvest fish without causing harm to other species that the gillnets could be done away with in favor of some other means of harvesting fish. I am sure allot of Sturgeon, native Chinook Salmon, Coho Salmon, Steelhead, and any other species that swimms the Columbia is greatly and unessasarily dammaged by the tangle nets. I do not think they should have their limits lowered, or their rights to harvest removed (however I am adding that as an option in the poll). I believe there are better, more efficiant ways to harvest comercial fish that would make everyone a winner in the end. Times change as do they way things are done (especialy when it comes to nature and our resorces and preserving them as best we can). I have tried to creat this in a way that hopefully would not create any issues. So on to the poll.

[ 01-03-2004, 02:45 AM: Message edited by: glassblower ]

[Thumper]

Would you rather stay at home?

Would you rather go for a walk and only cross the street at the light?

Would you rather go for a walk and cross the street at the light but do it on the "wait" signal so that you could most likely get hit by a car, even maybe a big truck, and get killed and not go to heaven even?

The choices are not especially well-chosen, IMHO.

[love2fish]

Looks like there is only one choice on this one.......

love2fish

[Pickles]

Even though I voted, I did not feel there was a good answer to choose. How about?

Would you like to see legislation that would ban commercial gillnetting and protect hatchery production for the sport fishing community.

I like this choice much more

[Pete]

A few years ago, money from the Northwest Power Planning Council mitigation funds - the money from the dams to mitigate the losses of salmon in the Columbia - helped create the Select Area Fisheries, also known as the Terminal Area Fisheries. They were created to give the commercial netters places to fish where they wouldn't hurt the ESA listed fish in the main stem Columbia. Last year the netters took over 10,000 fish in those fisheries. I think we should recognize that the SAFE is relatively successful and that it represents an alternative to main stem netting, not just an additional option.

[love2fish]

Pete, didn't they shorten the season last year because the netter's caught to many ESA fish early in the season?

Thanks
love2fish

[Pete]

Your memory is accurate. Which is why it is SO IMPORTANT that sports fishermen testify at the Commission meeting in Salem on Friday, January 9th and again in Olympia on January 17th!

ODF Comm'n Mtg - Jan. 9

Washington Commission - Columbia Salmon allocation is item 10

[drhall99]

I'm not against commercial fishing. I'm just against unselective fishing gear, like gillnets. But then, I also feel that the oversize sturgeon fishery should be limited to circle hooks, too. Changing these methods will help protect our future fisheries.

jmo,
D.

One thing that needs to be pointed out is they found that a lot of Snake River bound springers were taken in that terminal fishery in Youngs Bay.
It's obviously not fool proof nor necessarily a safe haven. All more the need for something more selective than gill nets.

[boater]

I think we should recognize that the SAFE is relatively successful and that it represents an alternative to main stem netting, not just an additional option. [/QB]

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">so, with money and budgets being so tight within the bpa and with mitchell act funding, where is the money comming from for these terminal fisheries ? when you here of hatcheries closing and terminal fisheries opening you kind of wonder, at least i do.

If I am not mistaken here the gillnetters actually fund at least part of the Youngs Bay terminal fishery.

[boater]

Originally posted by Stew:
If I am not mistaken here the gillnetters actually fund at least part of the Youngs Bay terminal fishery.

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">stew, here`s a LINK that shows the funding, the gillnetters chip in alittle but i realy dont think they could afford to fund the whole thing.

[TonTo]

I realize there is a need for a commercial harvest,salmon is a main dietary staple for alot of the world and not everyone does or can catch their own,but yes it could be done differently.Of all the comercial money how much actualy goes to support state ran hatcheries and how much actualy goes to the comercial lobbie,how much sport money goes to hatcheries for that matter and how much goes to the general fat cat fund?
That said I want to see the nets raised and the sturgeon kept out of em.Their is no hatchery for the sturgeon and I can't see where comercial money could possibly have an impact on the sturgeon fishery so please quit targeting the sturgeon,they should be made a game fish and free from comercial harvest,in the past they were considered a nucense,and a trash fish by the comercial netters and killed indescrimanently(sp?)because of the damage they did to the nets,they were not targeted untill they achieved a comercial value(greed)If the netters want to keep incidentaly caught sturgeon they should be held to the same standard as the sports fishery 5 fish and no more. After all that is what happened to the over sized fish at the turn of the century and we are just now regaing a spawning population (not the little over sized fish but the schoolbuss sized monsters that are needed to maintain a healthy spawning population)

[Mrdorkfish]

Why is so much time and energy wasted on arguing about a split when the best thing is getting them out of the river alltogether. The second choice in this poll makes the most sense. Support hatcheries which would support the salmon market. Have the gillnetters process the fish that return to the hatcheries....any fish that reaches a hatchery has better meat quality than any farm raised fish. Too much politics and too many people trying to be political just wastes time and money... It just seems to obvious to me but i'm just a dork :tongue:

I'll be fishing somewhere while you are sitting in a hearing or on some steps of a state building holding a sign. "Here's your sign" [img]graemlins/1zhelp.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/eek13.gif[/img]

MrDorkfish [img]graemlins/dork.gif[/img]

Louis

[fish-bones]

I totaly agree with you on this issue .I will never agree to gillnetting any river and hope that we can get it on an initiative to vote on again. I think with the internet reaching so many people now, that we could get a favorable vote to get .I dont understand why it so hard to get the fishery,s dept. to see this. Why dont they just insist that the only sensible comm. fishing is trolling in the ocean.If it was such a sensible way to fish,why dont all the states allow it???? We seem to have the only dumb fishery,s dept. people in the country.Am i wrong ????I wonder if the gillnetters assoc. gets to claim our fisheries dept,s people as a deduction off tere taxes?? isn,t an expense deductable off their taxes???


QUOTE]Originally posted by Mrdorkfish:
Why is so much time and energy wasted on arguing about a split when the best thing is getting them out of the river alltogether. The second choice in this poll makes the most sense. Support hatcheries which would support the salmon market. Have the gillnetters process the fish that return to the hatcheries....any fish that reaches a hatchery has better meat quality than any farm raised fish. Too much politics and too many people trying to be political just wastes time and money... It just seems to obvious to me but i'm just a dork :tongue:

I'll be fishing somewhere while you are sitting in a hearing or on some steps of a state building holding a sign. "Here's your sign" [img]graemlins/1zhelp.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/eek13.gif[/img]

MrDorkfish [img]graemlins/dork.gif[/img]

Louis [/QUOTE]

[glassblower]

From the looks of the poll gillnets would be gone if it ever came to vote. The gillnetters may contribute some funds to the hatcherys but you could but it is a very small amount of the percentage, I would say they are bigger voice than funder. One thing that kind of bugs me is that if a sports fisherman was to do anything to cause harm to a sturgeon and got caught he would be up to his armpits in trouble (even if it was not intentional) but yet the gillnetters are causing harm to sturgeon and it is let go as a statistic of gillnetting. I do not think that is right. As time goes on do believe it will change.

[Flatfish]

Something with your thinking is flawed IMHO.

You slant this thread( like so many conversations on this much debated subject) towards the impact on endangered fish.

But we are supposed to kill at least as many fish as they are. It depends on how they split the impact between the sports and commercials.

Yes we do catch many more hatchery fish, but we still kill the nates just the same. Dead is dead, you know.

And the money arguement on a cost per fish basis is bogus too. Because water is worth a lot more in agricultural uses than fisheries. The Deschutes is worth a lot more money if a farmer sprinkles it's waters on his crops instead of some fly dudes trying to catch redsides out of it. Anyone wanna step up and donate our beloved Deschutes to the Ag industry? I don't wanna give it up either.

Bottom line, I want to catch springers like everyone else. I think the nets slow my fish per hour rate down considerably. I think sports anglers caught more fish, with less problems before the tangle nets were started, because the commercials were done in early March at the latest. They had already met their impacts.

Fight em if you want, but this is the one point where they make fair money. Do you really think they are just gonna roll over and die? You wanna take the nets out? Get them out in the financial losers( Tules, and usually URBs) to start.

Dad taught me to not pick fights I can't win. The private property fight was a loser( not so much as a concept, but the private property owners- Read ranchers and farmers- simply are too financially overwhelming to take on in the name of fishing). There was something like 175 grand spent fighting them by the steelheaders alone. And fisherman have nothing to show for their money. This fight will go the same way, unless the anglers side starts where it can win. Which is the Tules and URBs. Follow that with Cohos and Sturgies in freshwater.But if you pick on the springers first, the money will run out before the jury has their verdict.

Now I know my way of thinking is not the popular opinion here. But the bottom line is the killing too many endangered species way of thought is flawed. Gimme another reason, and I will try to keep an open mind. You do the same.

My 2 cents for the umpteenth time.

Time for the flameproof suit.

Mark and the dog.

[glassblower]

Flatfish, what other reason would there be to remove the tangle nets other than the damage they do to the fish they are not trying to catch. If that is not reason enough then what is? Point here is there are better ways to farm fish without the use of tangle nets. Tangle nets are a device of greed. They could have the same take with other methods, and eventualy both sides (sports & commercial) would have an improved run, and a larger fishery to take from. I know the Columbia is a great fishery, but do you not believe it could be better for both sides just by making basic changes in the way things are done? I do not want to see commercial fishing stoped, I buy fish from the store just like thousands of other people do. I just believe there are better ways to harvest.

Originally posted by Flatfish:
Yes we do catch many more hatchery fish, but we still kill the nates just the same. Dead is dead, you know....There was something like 175 grand spent fighting them by the steelheaders alone. And fisherman have nothing to show for their money

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">This is where your argument fails Mark and fails seriously! Our (sports fishing) C&K mortality is not close to the mortality of the nets incidental bycatch of wild fish! It makes no sense compare the two!
Also what about the economical impact of sports versus commercial? Again no comparison between the two there either
There are alternatives to gill nets to get the public their salmon.
$175,000 spent by the ANWS? Not even close! We never had that kind of money to spend and believe me I know since I am on the executive committee for ANWS.
The money we did spend was productive in that we won the nav study on the Sandy River! You are right about the big $$$ ranchers though and it's been a tough fight for what we've gotten.

[Flatfish]

Stew,

if my numbers are off on the steelheaders, then please feel free to inform us masses. I am working from my memory here, from a leaflet that the steelheaders sent me this past year. the one where they were asking for more money for that specific fight. maybe you recall? So you know the numbers far better than me. I did not mean to give bad info.

My mortality stats are wrong?? Please explain to me if sports and commercials split the impact 50/50. Exactly what half of the endangered fish are we not killing? Oh yeah, their half. But we do kill ours the same amount of dead. Right?

One of the proposals I read about is 70 sports/ 30 commercials. You think they are gonna kill more than us then?

Don't give me the money talk, Shane. We simply are not gonna agree on this one. Are you ready to irrigate more of Central and Eastern Oregon with the Deschutes? Me neither. So that will never be a valid point with me. I lived there( Bend). Water is a mighty valuable resource there. It is worth a lot more than fish are to the economy.

I know you and I will never see eye to eye on a lot of this stuff. But please understand that I do have many high regards for what you do at the steelheaders.

Peace.

Mark and the " Yeah Yeah Yeah" dog.

[boater]

Originally posted by Flatfish:

My mortality stats are wrong?? Please explain to me if sports and commercials split the impact 50/50. Exactly what half of the endangered fish are we not killing? Oh yeah, their half. But we do kill ours the same amount of dead. Right?

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">Exactly what half of the endangered fish are we not killing?

would probly be the endangered wild steelhead, i think the commercials are given a 1.8 percent impact of the run, as far as i know the sportsmans impact on them is minimal.

[Pete]

The sports and commercials split at combined 2% mortality of the entire run of ESA listed stocks, how the split is made is the allocation. Sport fishers kill about 10% of the fish they hook and release. Tangle nets result in an 18 1/2% mortality rate. There are 5 allocation options ranging from 60% commercial and 40% sport, to 70% sport and 30% commercial ... if the allocation is less than 65% sport, we won't get to fish through the month of April. Even if the allocation is 65% or 70% sport, if the nets exceed their impact limits we could see our season cut short as it has been in the last two years.

[Norski]

Just a line or two!!!!
Some fisherman have the first shot at the salmon and the springers ect!!!
Some of us who live over on the east side have a shot at some fish, but when you drive down the I-84 heading west all you see is Net's after Nets.
Now realy, I have tryed to count them as I drove to the Dalles, and you louse counts there are to many.
I belive some people need to make a liven, but come on, When you see at ever restraunt fresh salmon and springer for sale out of the back of a run down pick up, is it fair??
Now don't get me wrong, my tag is full for last year, But I think they should limit the time for any gill nets, and give all of us a shot at what God has given us.
To go back to the nets, I stoped at 3 mile canyon and talked to a family of imdians, who were unloading there take, they kept everthing, sturgon, catfish, Salmon, even Bass.
So If it came down to haven NETS IN THE RIVER, THEY SHOULD BE LIMITED. just my 2 cents worth, and for what it's worth.
RIVER-RAT.

[boater]

Originally posted by Pete:
The sports and commercials split at combined 2% mortality of the entire run of ESA listed stocks

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">i think thats kind of misleading the way the state writes that, they should say it the way it realy is and thats 2 percent of "each" stock of esa listed fish, the split we argue over is the 2 percent of listed spring salmon, we never argue over the 2 percent impact of the listed steelhead because almost all of it goes to the commercial gillnetters, i think it`s 1.8 percent to the gillnetters and .2 to the sportsman.

[Pete]

Boater, last year that might have been about right. The steelies showed up at exactly the wrong time and the stocks paid the price. Hopefully, the runs won't show up at an unusual time again this year.

[Crazy Fisherman]

I feel that all the nets should come out of all the rivers. The only salmon on the market sould be those caught by our local troll fleet out in the ocean. At least they have to use hook and line. When the fish get into the river let them spawn. The few that us sport fisherman get is a far cry from what gill nets get. At least when we catch a fish it has a good chance of living if we want to turn it loose. :smile: When they`re in a gill net their dead!! I might step on some toes here but that`s the way I feel.

[traskriverhouse]

Does anyone know when the announcement will be made on the gill net season on the Columbia for 2004?

[Pete]

The Columbia River spring chinook allocation will be adopted by the Columbia River Compact on February 5th at an historic meeting at the Museum of the Oregon Territory in Oregon City at 10 AM. After the allocation is finalized, the seasons will be determined. When the seasons are set, the notice will be posted on Ifish.

[fish-bones]

Originally posted by Pete:
Boater, last year that might have been about right. The steelies showed up at exactly the wrong time and the stocks paid the price. Hopefully, the runs won't show up at an unusual time again this year.

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">

[fish-bones]

I,m a little lost on this thinking that the steelhead came in at the wrong time.Isn,t that one of the best arguments to get those scummy netters out of the river??? Maybe the fisheryboys should put a net across the COLUMBIA to stop this from happenning??? OOPS,SORRY ABOUT THAT MISTAKE CAUSE THAT WOULD STOP THE FISH FROM GOING UP RIVER WHERE THE GILLNETTERS ARE WAITING TO NET THEM.

FISH-BONES



QUOTE]Originally posted by Pete:
Boater, last year that might have been about right. The steelies showed up at exactly the wrong time and the stocks paid the price. Hopefully, the runs won't show up at an unusual time again this year. [/QUOTE]