What do you think of this?

[Bo Peep]

This was sent to me today I would like to see all your thoughts about this?


The Commission meeting on Friday Sept. 17th resulted in a host of about a dozen people from the anti-harvest/anti-hatchery side campaigning to eliminate all hatchery production on the Umpqua river and others.

Thanks to OAA VP Josh Bettesworth, CAF Board member Joe Janowicz, and OAA Science Panelist Lyle Curtis for standing up for Oregon anglers and their communities. However, they were grossly outnumbered. It is unfortunate that ODFW Staff does not offer much opinion, only data that is easily and feverishly attacked by the anti-groups. It is unfortunate that the Commission itself is now tasked with making decisions on regulations and management strategies that will likely be based largely on public input.

If we are to hang on to any hatchery or harvest privileges, we are going to have to stand up. The Oct. 15th meeting will again have the masses of anti-groups lined up to tell our Commission what they value. I must call on each one of you today to plan on writing and/or presenting public testimony on the value of hatcheries and harvest in October.

Please share this with your group, your friends, your relatives; anyone that you can. The October meeting will be about hatchery and harvest in regard to the Rogue/South Coast, as well as the Central Coast.

Thanks to Stan Steel, President of the Oregon Outdoor Council and Director of the Oregon Anglers Alliance for the below summary of yesterday's demands from the ant-fishing groups.

It's time to stand up or stand down.

Leonard Krug President, Oregon Anglers Alliance



Stans summary;



Today's Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission's hearing was a well-choreographed anti-hatchery show, featuring testimony from radical environmentalists representing the Native Fish Society, North Umpqua Foundation, Conservation Angler and the once revered Umpqua River Steam boaters Association! Oregon's wild coastal steelhead and chinook runs according to their no-compromise testimony, are failing due to an overabundance of hatchery fish on the spawning grounds. In their perspective, native hatchery fish are bad because they are reared in uniform concrete tanks, transmit disease and alter the gene pool when they breed with wild fish.



The anti-hatchery drama didn't end with the singing of the same old song that harvest anglers have been listening to for decades, so Dr. Elizabeth Perkin, Native Fish Society, confidently belted out a new verse. The good Doctor boldly admonished the Commissioners to adopt the following suite of adaptive management rules which in her elitist worldview would most assuredly save the Umpqua's wild summer run steelhead and spring chinook salmon from sure-fire extinction.



Dr. Perkin's Native Fish Society's Proposed Angling Regulation Changes:



1. Angling with artificial flies and lures only

2. No motorized boat use in the river (do to ease of quickly gaining access to good fishing areas)

3. Prohibit angling from floating devices (drift boats - rafts)

4. Low flow angling closures



The above rules mirror actions taken on the Olympic Peninsula last year by Washington F&G. Washington's and Oregon's anglers may soon be in the same sinking boat (sorry for the pun).



Note: Adaptive Management is the verbal tool now being frequently used by anti-harvest advocates to justify their petitions and regulatory requests of the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission to adopt rules and policies that cancel our sustainable harvest programs. The anti-hatchery harvest adaptive management rhetoric sounds remarkably similar to what the radical animal rights groups have used to co-opt the word and meaning of "conservation in their ad-nauseum emotionally based attempts to ban hunting opportunities!



80% of all fish harvested by anglers in Oregon are of hatchery origin and sadly it is equally obvious that the above anti-hatchery organizations and individuals, just like their anti-hunting brethren, have little regard for you or your traditional nature connected lifestyles and associated harvest opportunities.

It is a grind but we must bend our backs to the task and aggressively fight yet another in a long line of attempts to do away with Oregon's hatchery harvest programs.



Stan Steele

 

[Grant22]

It’s unfortunate that it has turned into a “us vs them” mindset, the anti-hatchery groups don’t really care about fishing opportunities as long as there is a wild fish in the river that they can catch and release on their fly rod for it to die later from exhaustion.

 

[Snopro]

1, sometimes 2, and 3 work well on the Deschutes. 4 isn't ever necessary because it's a tailwater, but similar heat closures are used.

Give it a try, see if it helps.

 

[TheKnigit]

This would have the potential to have a pretty major financial impact to some of the communities like Coos Bay, Winchester Bay, and Gold Beach. Where a lot of people flock for the fall salmon run. I know quite a few folks who would hang up salmon angling all together if it went to catch and release only. I don't feel that stopping hatchery production is the answer.

Items 2 & 3 would be a big sacrifice for someone in my position. Not that I wouldn't be willing to adapt if this is implemented nor am I necessarily opposed to it, and yes I understand that this is a little selfish. I have two elderly grandfathers who I love to take fishing, and my days with them are numbered. They can get in and out my drift boat at a launch with some help, but the constant getting in and out would be really hard. There is no way that they would be able to wade to a current seem, let alone walk a bank line. I am also part of Fly Fishing Veterans, which takes several trips a year for steelhead, or at least we try to. Some of these veterans are not physically able to walk around on a shoreline or wade either. That doesn't mean that they couldn't go on other lake trips where boats can be used.

Number 4 I think is good practice, and is already being used in most cases.

One question I have is would these proposed changes be just for salmon/steelhead angling? Or would it be for all fishing across the board in rivers? They are also suggesting to switch all fishing to catch and release. Is that only for salmon/steelhead or would it be for all fishing in rivers? What about invasive/introduced species like smallmouth? Smallies aren't anywhere close to the main cause of our declining populations, but they are a decent contributor.

 

[Clbagshaw]

1, sometimes 2, and 3 work well on the Deschutes. 4 isn't ever necessary because it's a tailwater, but similar heat closures are used.

Give it a try, see if it helps.

Give it a try huh if they actually cared about the fisheries in Oregon they would not want to get rid of hatcheries. There is so many reasons why this is a horrible idea,

 

[Snopro]

Give it a try huh if they actually cared about the fisheries in Oregon they would not want to get rid of hatcheries. There is so many reasons why this is a horrible idea,

1-4 have nothing to do with hatcheries.

 

[gfisher2003]

I mean the stuff about bad genes and diseases in hatcheries are true. Hatchery fish are worse at living than wild fish are when they get out and spawn with wild fish they make the wild fish worse at living too. Hatcheries pack fish into tight spaces diseases get transferred more quickly and easier in those conditions. There is evidence for both of these and not a lot to the contrary.

 

[Shaun Solomon]

Fact: C&R fishing contributes to delayed mortality.

Fact: The application of wooden shampoo tends to kill more fish than C&R.

I love how everyone agrees that the stocks are in great peril, and overwhelming majorities of people insist that the best course of action is to stubbornly persist in doing the same things that have been done for the past hundred years, even as the fisheries collapse.

I’m not trying to rub anyone the wrong way, but it seems rich to me. If my favorite fish were at risk of extinction, I wouldn’t muck about with their gene pool, and I darned sure wouldn’t kill any of them. But then again, I’m an idiot, and I don’t have any skin in the game. My fish will be here long after (native) anadromous fish have been extirpated from the state.

Anyway, have fun mocking people who are trying to literally save the species you claim to love. Separating into “us and them”camps is always productive, and it’s a lot more fun than trying to achieve consensus.

Edit: not directed at the OP or anyone in particular, hugs and kisses to all.

 

[C_Run]

Well, there are certainly more factors than hatchery practices and sport fishing at play and things aren't done now as they have been for the last hundred years. For example, when I grew up on the coast in the 60's and 70's you hardly ever saw seals except for the ones that washed up on the beach with a bullet hole in the side. Before they became protected, the commercial guys shot a lot of them. I am not advocating killing them off but that was the way it was then and now every little creek has a gauntlet of seals patrolling the mouth waiting for the first salmon to wander in. Just go look. They certainly take their share of the fish. Also in those days, the commercial guys had hatch boxes on the creeks. Can't do that now. Plus the hatcheries put out a lot more fish than today. There were quite a few more fish to be caught in those days. What I don't understand is why, with our knowledge of genetics and all these hatcheries everywhere, why can't better strains of salmon be bred and more of them? I've caught some pretty robust steelhead that were progeny of the broodstock programs.

Besides the things that we could control, there are other things that we can't control like ocean conditions, people introducing smallmouth bass into certain rivers, climate. So, I doubt if just turning Oregon into some catch and release fly fisherman's paradise will have much of an effect all on it's own.

 

[Shaun Solomon]

I can’t disagree with any of that. It’s certainly a big, complicated mess. I don’t have nearly the depth of knowledge of it that most of y’all have, so I’m pretty much on the outside looking in.

Back in the 80’s the coastal redfish stocks in Texas were just about depleted. They banned the killing of redfish for 20 years or so, and the stocks recovered amazingly well. So in my mind reducing or eliminating take can be very helpful. I will say it seems like a more complicated equation with the salmon and steelhead. Redfish live their whole lives in the salt, for example.

I'm a die-hard bass guy that will at times do a little walleye fishing or fly fishing for trout. But if I could snap my fingers like Thanos and eliminate bass from the state, I’d probably go for it, because the door is closing on salmon and steelhead. Being a little bit of a tree hugger I hate the idea of species going extinct due to human greed and stupidity.

I would absolutely like to see sea lions shot in areas where they congregate and nuke fish. It’s not their fault, but sea lions are in a better place (for now) than salmon and steelhead.

That’s where I can’t understand getting upset about “adaptive management” or whatever the phrase is, you look at the situation on a case by case basis and adjust the approach as needed. If it doesn’t work, you can go back or go in another direction. But again, I admit I don’t know much about any of this. Maybe dams, low flows, hot weather, hatcheries, invasives, commercials, recreationals, and all of it can just work indefinitely and people will be able to keep bonking till their hearts are content.