Getting the nets out! Salmon rebounding!

:? "What?s making the difference? There are as many explanations as fishermen out there, but we can rest assured that a significant influence on the strength of runs comes from a conservation agreement with Greenland fishermen that has suspended their commercial fishery since 2002. The Atlantic Salmon Federation of the US and Canada and the North Atlantic Salmon Fund of Iceland established a fund that helped get the Greenland fishermen involved in alternative employment and fisheries, such as that for lumpfish. Certainly it stands to reason that when a fishery that had a quota to kill 60,000 large salmon in 2001 is stopped, then more salmon will make it back to their home rivers to spawn." That's from a short article from the good folks at Orvis: http://www.orvisnews.com/FlyFishing/...ic-Salmon.aspx that's the entire article.

Sure gives hope for the salmonids of the NW.:cool:

http://www.ccapnw.org/pageview.aspx?id=31358 Join the Costal Conservation Association (CCA)

There is a reason we have not moved the dial on recovery; it is the way we harvest - and continually over-harvest - our fish. Currently, the commercial fishing gear in use in the Columbia River and elsewhere (gillnets) is non-selective and kills large numbers of ESA-listed and wild salmon and steelhead. Gillnets are designed to "gill" fish snared in the nets, leading to suffocation and death before selection is possible. All marine life that gets caught in a gillnet dies, from salmon and steelhead to seals and seabirds. Ironically, the Pacific Northwest is one of the few areas in the country to still allow gillnets.

What the State of Washington has done to the salmon should be criminal, in my mind it is worse than that. How very sad to be so stupid.

My biggest problem with gill-netting, is that the same game and fish laws that make it a criminal act to either willfully or due to negligence, waste game meat does not apply. They can remove dead unwanted fish and toss them right back into the water. THAT in my mind is a disgusting and willfully unethical act. It should be required by law to maintain and consume EVERY fish killed in their net. I don't care if they sell it to a fertilizer plant.....manage what they take. If I shoot a grouse, skin it, and leave the edible carcass....its a crime. If I shoot a deer or bear and skin it or just take the antlers....its a crime. If you catch a chum salmon, milk the eggs and throw the carcass overboard, it is NOT a crime! It should be a fine and loss of your boat, commercial license and fishing equipment. And that goes for the tribes as well.