Quote Originally Posted by sagefisher View Post
There is a river in eastern Idaho where they have made it mandatory to kill any Rainbow trout because the Rainbows are hurting the native Cutthroat population. That goes against my grain so I will simply never fish that river. No one is going to tell me I HAVE to kill such a wonderful fish as a Rainbow, nor would they tell me to do the same for a Brown Trout. I simply would not fish that area either.

Larry ---sagefisher---
That fishery is the South Fork of the Snake. I have fished this river out of Swan Valley for the native cutthroat trout.

The South Fork of the Snake is one of the few rivers holding the Yellowstone Cutthroat. The goal of TU is not to make it easier to catch fish. It is to "conserve, protect and restore cold water fisheries and their watersheds." Conservation and protection includes the native fish over introduced species. Not only does the protection of native brook trout in the east and native cutthroat in the west fall within the guidelines, it is the very substance of TU's mission statement.

http://www.isu.edu/~keelerne/cuttpage/SFSR.htm

As a director of my TU chapter, I understand that TU wears two hats. First it is a conservation organization. And it is a sportsmen organization. When the two collide, I submit that we members of TU must take the high road of conservation rather than take the low road that fishers too often take. I will always support preserving the threatened native fish. There are plenty of places to catch rainbows and browns but few places where the native fish still exist.

It is this high road that allows TU to lobby in Congress to stop the Pebble Mine in Alaska. We would have little moral argument if all we did was grab and grab and support the destruction of native fisheries for what we think would provide better fishing. If we were to do that what conservation argument would we have if a mining company wanted to use the land and waters for their personal gain?