But a guy like you probably has already made up his mind and is set in his ways.
There you go again with the smooth talk.
I would just like to save the salmonoids for future generations and not just use them for bass food.
I would like to see all the fish and wildlife preserved for future generations, not just the salmonids. That's why I take exception to people like you who want to wipe out entire species of fish without fully understanding what their impact really is. Bass play a minor role in smolt predation and offset that somewhat by also eating pike minnow young, a native species you also dislike. Since you want to kill everything that preys on salmon here some to add to your list:
"For young Chinook Salmon, predation is very high. Many species eat the fry and smolts, including striped bass, American shad, sculpins and sea gulls. Reaching adulthood does not release them from predation, however, as they are still prey to many animals when they return to spawn. Most common are bears, orcas, sea lions, seals, otters, eagles, terns and cormorants. People have made predation worse by concentrating adult salmon at dams and weirs (Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, 1996; National Wildlife Federation, 2002; NOAA, 2001; University of California at Berkeley)."
You might also want to consider this:
"The main causes for the declining fish populations are overfishing, damming and diverting water, habitat destruction, and introducing hatchery populations. Overfishing has decreased population sizes enough that all other causes, along with natural predation, can have extreme effects, and population sizes decrease rapidly. Damming causes decline because it blocks adults from returning to their birthplace and because smolts often get sucked into the turbines of hydroelectric dams and are killed. Diverting water away from salmon streams causes water temperature to rise, reducing the oxygen carrying capacity of the water. Temperatures could also become fatally high in the summer. Reduced water levels could expose eggs in the winter, or flows could be too low to carry smolts out to sea. Habitat destruction, including logging, clearing rivers, pollution, and wetlands destruction, take away shade and necessary protection for juveniles. After logging has changed runoff patterns, streams may contain too much silt and become uninhabitable. Pollution can cause many physiological problems, including increased susceptibiity to pathogens. Introducing hatchery populations adds to the decline because the introduced populations interbreed with the native populations and can reduce resistence to disease (Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, 1996; National Wildlife Federation, 2002; NOAA, 2001; University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute, 2002; Arkoosh and Collier, 2002)."
But then I am just a stupid, ignorant, set in his ways multi-species fisherman.
? Let's try and stick to the topic. =)
