R
rainORsnow1
Thank God... just like all fish and wildlife departments they are a day late..and a dollar short, 5000 lbs of the cure is worth a pound of prevention... or something like that:think:
So the same year that "bass" hooks me up with sturgeon info I can't even take one. Bummer!
I agree with the gill-net assessment. I also saw something this summer that really opened my eyes to the number of fish being taken. I pulled up to the locks to sign up for pikeminnow while I fished below Bonneville and watched a truck pull up and sit there for about 5 minutes. Then another truck pulls up with a boat and 2-50 gallon coolers (looked like 50 gallons compared to a barrel). They proceeded to transfer the stocked coolers of fish in to the other truck for 15 minutes. My girlfriend and I lost count at 50. Salmon, steelhead.. they were grabbing up both. I asked them how much they charge and they said $5/lb. "As soon as we're done unloading we're going back out". When I looked in to their boat there wasn't a single rod, just one big gill net.
Now, I'm all for tradition, heritage and culture. I love watching the documentaries about northern cultures making hand made boats, going out with hand made gear and pulling in a whale that they use in the most resourceful, traditional way. And they do it once a year (at least they did a few years ago). The guys I saw at the locks were on a 17 foot powered boat, blue jeans and flannels, and a very obviously commercially made net. I don't understand what's traditional about it. Now, from what I've seen the Columbia shuts down on certain days for the commercial fisherman. It doesn't seem to be open year round. These sleds full of guys with no legal limit or obligation to the fishery seems to be a problem, in my mind. I really don't get it.
I'd like to see some change in that system.
Were these guys native? If so, some of their traditional ways of fishing were ruined when the dams were placed there.
You don't have to be native to use gillnets, the only restrictions(I think) are a commercial license($83) and that Natives can have stationary gillnets while all others have to be drift or attached to a boat. Also sale of commercially netted Salmon(gillnet) is supposed to be restricted to licensed wholesalers, restaurants, etc they're not really supposed to just sell them on the bank. I enjoy fishing for Sturgeon but I'm fine with the closure as long as we can still Catch and Release, hopefully they wont close that too.
You don't have to be native to use gillnets, the only restrictions(I think) are a commercial license($83) and that Natives can have stationary gillnets while all others have to be drift or attached to a boat. Also sale of commercially netted Salmon(gillnet) is supposed to be restricted to licensed wholesalers, restaurants, etc they're not really supposed to just sell them on the bank. I enjoy fishing for Sturgeon but I'm fine with the closure as long as we can still Catch and Release, hopefully they wont close that too.