2004 Columbia River springer allocations - unfair!

[RT]

NSIA news release:

NSIA spent 4 months of outreach with Sportfishing leaders in two states. At the same time, we instituted an intensive education program with members of the Commission, ODF&W Staff and members of the Oregon Legislature. We built large consensus supporting a full April mainstem sportfishery for Spring Chinook. The Oregon Commission disregared the business, communities and Legislators in support of the gillnetters. You should be outraged.

This decision reduces our allocation by nearly 1/3! E-mail your or call your legislator today.

www.leg.state.or.us/findlegsltr/findset.htm

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
Contact: Anne Pressentin Young [phone]
Internet: www.dfw.state.or.us Fax: [phone]
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In my opinion .....

The split between non-Indian commercial netters and sportfishers has gone down strongly on the of lobbying efforts by the commercials. Despite the immensely greater ecomonic beneficial affects the sportfishing entity has on our region, the new split will be app. 45% of the ESA impact to the few netters and app. 55% for the scores of thousands of sportfishers! We pay for those fish. And there is an abundance of quality farmed BC salmon and netted Alaskan native salmon that has been glutting the market! We got out spent and out screamed by the commercial lobby. So we get app. 1/3 less fishing quota this spring. This is even more aggrivating because it's within legilative and fishery officials powers to make a proper split. .......

...... That is not the case with the rediculously unfair split between the Columbia Tribal gillnetters and non-Indian fishers. But that abhorent situation is beyond the kind of control that is within reach of the non-Indian split. ... The Columbia Tribes have wrangled out of the US Gov. (under threats of more expensive lawsuits, and the illegal Dept. of the Interior's order No. 3206) to get a whopping 13% ESA impact on the Columbia springers - compared to 1% for the commercials and 1% of the sportfishers. The fall quotas also strongly favor the Tribes.

Everyone should call and/or mail the above about our outrage at these unfair allocations.

RT

[fish_on]

Sent my emails to all legislators and ODFW. We should all be at the meeting in Olymipa.

[RT]

Thanks much Fish_on. ... We are having a longer discussion thread about it in the Salmon/Steelhead board. I will post some of the pertinent comments thus far over to the General board here:

Mark (Flatfish) - "The commercials are very good at politics. Quotas are politics.

This [type of] thread is older than I am. Maybe instead of complaining about how many they get( which implies that someone "stole" my fish), maybe us sporties should show the government how the 10% mortality rate issued to us could be lowered bu not using bait, not netting fish that must be released, and using single hooks of a minimum size of say 3/0.

If we did that and lowered out impact from 10% to 6 %, we could fish thru April. And nobody( read commercial lobby or Natives) would try to stop us. Or at least they would not try very hard, right?

Sorry for the tough love. But to be honest, I am tired of a lot of pregnant doging going on by folks who refuse to play the game. If 10% of anglers were politically active, this would not happen every time. But it does."
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RT - "As for your comment in general about the sportfishing community's lack of effort to help our opportunities, that is unfortunately correct about the majority. But don't just assume that about any individuals. Lots of people, other than the groups I mentioned belonging to above [NSIA, NW Steelheaders, RFA], lend their efforts toward our causes. They can't all show up at every meeting. It would be very good if a lot more did though.

And I will say this:

All sportfishing people of the Northwest, whether they are among the actively supportive of our causes or not, do indeed have something to b!tch about! We don't just pay a small amount of taxes and electric rates toward salmon restoration like non fishers do ... we pay for millions on licenses fees, additional taxes on the sportfishing related equipment and tackle we buy, and we spend $BILLIONS contributing the regional economy in general (proven in credible studies)! Sportfishers do this -- not netters or non fishers! ...

In regards to your suggestions for getting more allocation, I like the idea of no-bait and single hook regs - at least for parts of seasons. Those springers grab scented Kwikfish with a beadchain extended 2/0 or 3/0 siwash hook readily! And also anchor or troll fished spinners and/or springer wobblers is very under utilized, and much more productive than many springer anglers realize (lots of you may have heard of Dudley Nelson Sr. - he didn't need any bait to perhaps be the most successful Willamette springer fisherman ever). Lots more good lure tricks to catch them too. ... However, the 10% mortality rate attached to C&R'd springers by the Columbia compact is a definite 'err on the safe side'. The intensive 2 year study on several thousands of Willamette springers caught and released with every method of bait and lure hooking, and all types of release methods (including the improper ones) proved out to be a combined 7% mortality rate. The NMFS (the Fed's gardian of the native fish runs via the ESA - Federal Endangered Species Act) had observers involved in that study. And because of the outcomes, they went ahead and re-opened the Columbia River mainstem for springer sportfishing for the first time in 28 years. Top fish bio expert, Jim Martin (former head of ODF&W), expressed in a letter to me that he and other bio's are confident with the amount of increased angler education that's taken place, the actual C&R mortality rates on springers (and steelhead for that matter) are now below 5% with the current regs in place (including allowing of bait and barbed trebles). Compare that to the outlandish waste of native fish by the commercial, and especially Tribal, netting. There mortality rates on native fish are many times higher than what the sportfishing community's is! Did I mention who pays the most for the hatchery fish to harvest?

With all that said, I hope all of you sportfishers will get off your @$$&$ from now on and get involved. It takes less time to email your sportfishing opportunity concerns and voting preferences to our political Reps and ODF&W than it does to tie up a bunch of leaders for a day's fishing!!! Please get after it. Thanks."
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*There apparently is now a limit of words per post. I will include more of member's comments in a following post - to be continued:

[RT]

Continued from above post:

Mark - "I do give money to organizations who I feel benefit me.Who represent MY VOICE. These may be commercial or sport organizations. It just depends on what I am trying to get done.

I have written letters. Emails. Gone to meetings. Voiced my opinion in public forums.

The conclusion I have drawn? If 10% of sports anglers tried as hard as I do( financially and pure effort), this thread would not be here today. But they do not. They never have. They seem too bust bickering amongst themselves to even writh down 3 objectives that the majority have in common.

On the Columbia river my 3 concerns are allocations of impacts, hatchery funding, and the Natives clipping their releases fish. Your list may vary.

I find it to be a depressing battle. Which may explain my tone on the issue as a whole. I do not find this to be a poor battle to fight. But it is tough to fight when nobody else is willing to set aside their objections and get the job done. I am sure you shared my frustration when you had to call off the press at your event. Right?"
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JohnB - "First, the sad fact is that the number of sportfishermen is on the decline. Data from ASA (American Sportfishing Assn), shows a 10 percent decline in the number of licensed fishermen between 1998 and 2002. Im sure there are many reasons including lack of interest by younger people, increased regulations, decimation of our fisheries by dams, pollution, and the other usual suspects, higher costs, and so on. Sport fishing is a dying sport.

Second is fisherman apathy. Both of you point this out quite well. Most fishing is still a solitary sport and seldom discussed outside of a small circle of liked minded people. Further most of us have never participated in any effort to support our sport other than maybe sending in a few bucks to some organization, or participating in a cleanup day somewhere. The sad fact is, most of us default to the “I hope the other guy will do it…” strategy and don’t act on important matters.

Third, sport fishing is extremely poorly organized, (nonexistent?). While there are thousands of organizations attempting to support us with varying missions and goals, the sad fact is that our voice is not represented. In this case at hand, the commercial lobby and the tribe lobby were clearly more effective and each of us can cite numerous additional examples of where the sportfisher got the short end of the stick. With the possible exception of TU and the bass-fishin guys, most groups remain grass roots efforts, under-funded, and only supported by small groups of people. Organized efforts are fragmented, local, and lack any viable voice.

So what do we do? I wish there was a magic pill but …… One ray of hope that is being practiced right here and on other similar boards is COMMUNICATION and EDUCATION. For the first time, we can economically reach a much greater audience thru the Internet. Through discussions just like this, we will raise the awareness level of all of us to the important issues we face. It is important for each of us to continue these efforts to GET THE WORD OUT and hopefully at some point, as a result of this increased education/knowledge, more of us will be motivated to act.

While it hasnt happened yet, my hope is that at some point, someone will be able to get enough of the 1000’s of small groups to coalesce to form a large enough voice to be recognized by the very people who are taking actions that negatively affect us. At that point, they will be forced to listen to us. Once again, I think the Internet could play a large role in this effort.

Until these things come about, I think it is incumbent upon each and every one of us to learn as much as we can, understand what the politicians are doing, speak out and become far more active than we have ever been in the past. We must support each other in our fishermen’s fraternity, and do what we can to bring new people into our sport. I firmly believe we are fighting for the very survival of our sport."
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Brion L. - "RT, Letters and emails off...I give money to politicians so notes about the fish allocation (among other topics) will be included.

There is an election coming up and that would be a chance for fishermen, boaters, sportsmen, environmentalists et al to get together to support pro-salmon politicians and policies. It can cross party lines so you don't have to give anything away on other issues.

I was at the boat show and not a peep about this by any of the businesses at the boat show. Granted the ski boaters can live without the fish but a lot of mfgs and sales outfits are dependent on fishing either directly or indirectly. Nothing at Alumaweld or NorthRiver or Willie or Boulton or Thunderjet booths about lobbying for fishing.

I fish a lot but I'm also a bonafide tree hugging environmental wacko. It is frustrating any time you work for change. It takes years and years of constant pressure and lots of setbacks, one step back, two steps forward kind of thing. We have seen a lot of progress over the last 30 years, even if the current times are discouraging for enviromentalists and salmon. I would say that 90% of the good news about salmon is due not to the fishing industry and fishermen but to the work of the environmentalists who get dissed badly by the fishing community. It would benefit both communities to work together since they really have common goals. Something else to look at going forward. Brion"
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RT - "Very well said, John and Brion! Thanks much.

Mike PM'd me, suggesting to post more email addies and to post suggestions for what would be good to say to state Reps (including our Congressman), and to ODF&W and WDF&W.

There are already some addies and numbers at the top of my first post (in the NSIA portion). I will look for more. Any help would be appreciated - and things should also be posted in the same thread put on the public accessable General board also.

As for what to write in letters, there is a lot of info to draw from in my posts, and Mark's and John's and Brion's, to put together letters in your own words to send out. I may try to encapsulate suggested points for letters in a following post, but these are better to put into your own words for more accumulative effectiveness (which is easy and quick to do). Telephone calls would be good too. The main points of unfairness were laid out [in above posts]. Using those and also informing them these decisions and other quota decisions will very much affect the way you vote in future elections! ...

To address one of Brion's (and Freespool's) posted points: The sled builders and other fishing industries most all belong to NSIA. They all contribute significant money for NSIA's excellent comprehensive efforts on our behalves. The money also goes to fund two full time NSIA appointed Wash. DC lobbyists that work for our opportunities. However, very obviously now, more support and all of our efforts are still very much needed also!
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[KingFisher85]

Here is some people we all should e-mail

Federal Senator
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Senator Patty Murray (Democrat-WA)
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510-0001
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
WebSite: murray.senate.gov/
E-Mail : murray.senate.gov/email/index.cfm

Senator Maria Cantwell (Democrat-WA)
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510-0001
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
WebSite: cantwell.senate.gov/
E-Mail : cantwell.senate.gov/contact/index.html

Federal Representative
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Representative Brian Baird (Democrat-03)
United States House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
WebSite: www.house.gov/baird/
E-Mail : www.house.gov/baird/zipauth.htm

State Senator
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Senator Joseph Zarelli (Republican-018)
P.O. Box 40418
Olympia, WA 98504-0418
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
WebSite: www.leg.wa.gov/senate/members/senmem18.htm
E-Mail : [e-mail]

State Representative
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Representative Tom Mielke (Republican-018)
P.O. Box 40600
Olympia, WA 98504-0600
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
WebSite: www.leg.wa.gov/house/members/d18_1.htm
E-Mail : [e-mail]

Representative Ed Orcutt (Republican-018)
P.O. Box 40600
Olympia, WA 98504-0600
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
WebSite: www.leg.wa.gov/house/members/d18_2.htm
E-Mail : [e-mail]

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US Representatives
www.oregon.gov/index.cfm?CurrPID=840

US Senators
www.oregon.gov/index.cfm?CurrPID=839

[Triumph the Insult Dogfish]

oh yes oh yes oh ho ho yes! The state and federal fisheries departments are so very nice so active and fair on our side and so very very nice ............ for me to poop on! Washington's dept is the one who sides on the commercial netters, leaving it up to the Oregon dept to lean toward the sport fishing side by voting for an equal or better split to hook and line fishermen. Apparently they caved in after the last meeting? But there are two more meetings before a final decision is stamped, one in Olympia and one in Oregon City on February 5th. A show of lots of sporties at these could very well swing a longer season for us on the Columbia.