Washington Fly Fishing Forum banner

Tribal netting

15K views 195 replies 39 participants last post by  Leopardbow 
#1 ·
Anyone know when they net the forks area rivers? Is there somewhere i can look to see when they do it?
 
#163 ·
well Delbert I feel the pain too-that's what it feels like at times-I have stomped and pissed my way around many a riverbank kicking rocks with the same feeling-friggin PISSED. about all of it.

but tribal fishers are entitled, not just by treaty, but MORALLY, to pursue a fair share of the catch; any third grader will tell you "I was here first".
Let's not beat them up for that....that's too 70's. But...it would be refreshing if the tribes would step up and be the true stewards and caretakers of the rivers that their own tradition requires them to be. That's a good impulse to encourage in everyone.
Sportsmen...are not organized, are not vocal, don't PUSH. so of course we lose. Would you like to change that? personally? you can. Start today.

CCA is currently advocating for the use of selective fish traps on rivers. That means the tribes get theirs, in a sustainable way, and the traps harmonize with their own traditions...more so than monofilament gillnets! less effort for the same amount of catch too, plus it's a selective method that allows ESA-listed steelhead and salmon to go on upstream and do their thing.
It makes management manageable, or at least gives it a start.

Now Derek, as a former commercial I can tell you those guys aren't going to let go easy. You get salty blood, you can't let go man. There has to be an alternative.


But commercial gillnetters could make a decent living recovering derelict nets and crab traps, couldn't they? We need creative solutions where folks start to win AND the ecosystem benefits. I'm just a dumbass lousy caster and I have ideas. What's the problem with our lawmakers and what's our problem for not putting their feet to the fire?
eleven pages of this string and we don't have an email campaign organized? how LAME are we?
 
#164 ·
let me try summarizing what has been posted over all of these pages. if i miss something, please addd it with your own addendum.

- native peoples came to the coasts of the PNW as a progney of the 6 women who walked across the ice from siberia (documentation via genome study has this nailed)
- native peoples occupied a narrow strip of land between the sea and the forest.
- their lives were focused on survival and as such developed a resource extraction mind set
- as is hard to imagine, their existence depended on catching and killing
- first contact with the 'outside', perhaps around the 1400's and subsequent introduced them to goods available via barter. yes, they also bartered among themselves in specific well known areas (celilo as an example)
- with contact, their lives changed dramatically (argue this any way you wish)
- many native americans were moved, physically, to dediticated 'reservations' so the white settlers could occupy the choice properties villages were built on.
- did the native americans 'understand' what was happenning? seems as though the s'klallam did, refused to move, assimilated, and were able to homestead.
- why didn't the other tribes do the same thing? don't know.
- extraction continued during this time with trade with the settlers occupying their lives
- until the settlers started fishing themselves and stopped relying on the native americans
- the few who acquired land shifted gears in order to survive in this new age
- there remained a feeling, however, of having been taken to the cleaners, without compensation, whatever that means in todays world
- enter boldt, a single human, making a single decision, never challenged
- did boldt mean that native americans were entitled to 50% of the harvest to maintain their traditional way of life? or did he mean they should become commercial fishermen in the true sense of commercial fishing?
- there is no arguement regarding subsistence, ceremonial, and recently added, barter
- traditional ways of fishing, traps, were employed because they were efficient, required little person power, freeing individuals for other survival tasks, and produced results
- the tribes seem more interested, today, in keeping members 'employed' not reducing the numbers of people necessary to carry out fishing
- the unregulated fishing, yes that is what it is and blessed by boldt, has and continues to degrade wild fish runs all over the PNW
- other factors important to address?? of course but we don't have 10-20-30-40-50 years to correct the problems non native americans have created
- removing ALL nets has zero to do with the 50%. it has a great deal to do with efficiency of fishing which the tribes will not support (remember it puts folks out of work)
- one man's opinion (boldt) has never been challenged and as long as the supply of fish seemed endless, what was the point
- the supply of fish is NOT endless, and the end is right around the corner, time to challenge boldt in a federal court of law
- the challenge?
1. All nets out
2. All traditional fishing (ceremonial, subsistence and barter-not sale of, exempt)
3. All commercial fishing regulated with strict quota enforcement by a single agency



add what you like but please don't assume that boldt cannot be challenged or modified. it set an important precident in a time of abundent fish. we are far beyond that time and the situation has turned grim and is getting more so.
 
#166 ·
let me try summarizing what has been posted over all of these pages. if i miss something, please addd it with your own addendum.

- native peoples came to the coasts of the PNW as a progney of the 6 women who walked across the ice from siberia (documentation via genome study has this nailed)
- native peoples occupied a narrow strip of land between the sea and the forest.
- their lives were focused on survival and as such developed a resource extraction mind set
- as is hard to imagine, their existence depended on catching and killing
- first contact with the 'outside', perhaps around the 1400's and subsequent introduced them to goods available via barter. yes, they also bartered among themselves in specific well known areas (celilo as an example)
- with contact, their lives changed dramatically (argue this any way you wish)
- many native americans were moved, physically, to dediticated 'reservations' so the white settlers could occupy the choice properties villages were built on.
- did the native americans 'understand' what was happenning? seems as though the s'klallam did, refused to move, assimilated, and were able to homestead.
- why didn't the other tribes do the same thing? don't know.
- extraction continued during this time with trade with the settlers occupying their lives
- until the settlers started fishing themselves and stopped relying on the native americans
- the few who acquired land shifted gears in order to survive in this new age
- there remained a feeling, however, of having been taken to the cleaners, without compensation, whatever that means in todays world
- enter boldt, a single human, making a single decision, never challenged
- did boldt mean that native americans were entitled to 50% of the harvest to maintain their traditional way of life? or did he mean they should become commercial fishermen in the true sense of commercial fishing?
- there is no arguement regarding subsistence, ceremonial, and recently added, barter
- traditional ways of fishing, traps, were employed because they were efficient, required little person power, freeing individuals for other survival tasks, and produced results
- the tribes seem more interested, today, in keeping members 'employed' not reducing the numbers of people necessary to carry out fishing
- the unregulated fishing, yes that is what it is and blessed by boldt, has and continues to degrade wild fish runs all over the PNW
- other factors important to address?? of course but we don't have 10-20-30-40-50 years to correct the problems non native americans have created
- removing ALL nets has zero to do with the 50%. it has a great deal to do with efficiency of fishing which the tribes will not support (remember it puts folks out of work)
- one man's opinion (boldt) has never been challenged and as long as the supply of fish seemed endless, what was the point
- the supply of fish is NOT endless, and the end is right around the corner, time to challenge boldt in a federal court of law
- the challenge?
1. All nets out
2. All traditional fishing (ceremonial, subsistence and barter-not sale of, exempt)
3. All commercial fishing regulated with strict quota enforcement by a single agency

add what you like but please don't assume that boldt cannot be challenged or modified. it set an important precident in a time of abundent fish. we are far beyond that time and the situation has turned grim and is getting more so.
We aren't assuming it *can't* be challenged, what we are assuming is that any of the previous cases being brought back will be laughed out of the court room. If you want to come up with a novel new idea on how to challenge it, please go ahead. It just can't be a rehash of something old.
 
#165 ·
I am going with #3 with a very short buffer before a #1.

I believe better regulation will certainly help in this case but that may be too late.
 
#171 ·
GT,
When are you going to get this. BOLDT IS NOT GOING DOWN. Furthermore, the tribes, because of their rights to the fish, have the only real lever to keep the state from driving the fisheries into the ground.
1. There was nothing in the treaties that said how the fish had to be used.
2. "in common" was interpreted how is usually is when a treaty is made between two states
3. The supply of fish doesn't change Boldt. If anything it tip in the favor of the tribes.
4. Before you mention taking Boldt back to court one more time--Do some actual research ie law review articles, maybe the book I suggested earlier (Pevar, 2004), enough of your half-assed conjecture.
5. Speaking of tilting not being grounded in fact, have you read your "summary"? it's primarily your opinion--not grounded in fact.
 
#173 ·
thanks derek, i have read boldt multiple times. your suggesting that extinction plays into the tribes hands is an interesting point. the summary i posted is what i have gleaned via this thread as well as in depth reading of various sources, including those written exclusively from the indian perspective. if what i posted offends your sense of what is, do your own reading!

i never found rolling over and playing dead 'cause someone can't see any light at the end of the tunnel an operative strategy. i can't imagine this country moving forward on any issue, present or past, via such a dead dog strategy. but, if it works for you in your life space, continue on.....has never worked for me, just a different approach to lifes trevails.

and i am surprise, james, to find out this is MY problem and I am the one who needs to solve it. and here i thought that the extinction of fish was OUR problem. my mistake, for sure. perhaps we are suffering from the 'no we can't' syndrome and need a bit of the 'yes we can' mind set. but that might be hoping for way too much.
 
#174 ·
. . . and here i thought that the extinction of fish was OUR problem
The end result will be OUR problem indeed.

The problem with all your points GT is that nowhere do you suggest what YOU or the sportfishing community in general are going to have to do in order to positively impact the end result. Every argument you've ever put forward, in this thread and many others before, is about what the tribes or the commercials HAVE to do so that YOUR fishing quality won't be adversely affected.

Based on previous exchanges, trying to get you to understand how selfish that zero-sum position is might be akin to pissing upwind as I'm sure your reply will demonstrate.

K
 
G
#176 ·
I'm sure this is already been said but non-tribal fishers need to clean up our act before we have a leg to stand on legally. Zero sport harvest of wild steelhead in WA is the first step towards changing harvest regimes, I'm just affraid we're running out of time. It will be a tragic day when literally EVERY stock of wild steelhead in the state of Washington has collapsed. Collectively we just never seem to be able to learn from our mistakes, a tragedy of the steelhead commons to be sure
 
#177 ·
Can you imagine over a million wild steelhead returning to Puget Sound? A little over 100 years ago there likely was. Now there are maybe 20,000.

Every stock already has collapsed (OP included). Even when deemed healthy 25 years ago they were at best 10% of historical. Boldt had absolutely NOTHING to do with this. It was steamships and canneries that did in ALL of the runs. Coupled with the crap of fish culture being substituted for habitat. That too goes back to the 1800's. Then of course large scale human development and resource extraction. Nothing new, you all know the story.

MY fishing quality was impacted long before any of us were born.

$38 million vs $424 million. We recreational fisheries generate more than 10X's the net economic contribution to WA...why is it WDFW is wrapped around their fingers??? If there were any semblance of conservation in the state government it should be $0 to $800,000,000. If every dime they bring in wasn't used for fish culture maybe the money could have been/is used for something to actually help the fish.

William
 
#178 ·
Thumbs up, Inland. We fish on the scraps and relic of a formerly abundant resource.

As for why WDFW does what it does, it's their legislative mandate, the law, which they don't seem to want to bother mentioning to the Legislature that the model is obsolete and unsustainable. It amazes me to see so much intellectual dishonesty in gov't. and agencies. So many ditto-heads in salmon recovery continue to talk about recovering wild salmon and steelhead to the level of naturally self-sustaing HARVESTABLE runs as though it actually could happen. Delusion is a popular drug.

Sg
 
#179 ·
I think there may be efforts are at least an acknowledgement now that the monies generated by recreational anglers needs to be returned to the resource in various forms which may include enforcement amount other things. We still need to keep hammering on our legislature and govenor though to change a system that has not been working.

In addition, recreational anglers and their interests are now part of the North of Falcon process which has not been the case in the past. I believe this should allow a better allocation of the resources particularily to us recreational fishers.
 
#180 ·
Salmo,

Amazing how once something becomes the norm its nearly impossible to change it. You would think WDFW's track record "might" show their system isn't working. Unless that means to extract every last fish. Which its been doing a great job. Amazing how politics work. Everybody at WDFW knows the model is archaic. Don't fall out of line with the 'company' agenda or fear your job. And any other possibilities of future employment in the field you spent so much time and $$$ getting that degree/promotions. Seems like a fair and just system.

And you are right. If we are extremely lucky we might be able to keep H&R fishing for steelhead over the next 10-20 years. There is no way the runs will ever come back to commercially harvestable levels with humans still in the picture.

What about the illegal high seas drift net fisheries? Anybody have any guesses on how much impact they are playing with these WA state fish?

William
 
#181 ·
Inland,

Fish are more on the radar screen of legislators because of ESA listings than is fishing. Fishing is recreation, like parks (State Parks), and the State Committee on Outdoor Recreation. These aren't unimportant, they're just relatively unimportant to legislators who have bigger issues on their plates. Consequently recreational fishing gets very limited legislative attention. It can be made important to the legislature only through aggressive lobbying.

As for WDFW doing its job, an excellent case can be made that it's performing its legislative mandate to the letter. It allocates harvest among user groups, none of which are happy, suggesting that WDFW might be threading the needle of complex management pretty well. Since the Legislature has seen fit to severely limit WDFW's ability to protect fish habitat by law, then it's safe to say that habitat protection to maintain a robustly healthy fishery resource is truly not a high state priority, all the lip service to the contrary notwithstanding. So WDFW manages a steadily diminishing natural resource according to the allocation mandates they are given, and tries to prop it up with the nation's largest fish hatchery system.

High seas drift net fisheries are the least of our worries. At their peak in the early to mid 1990s, the maximum estimated take of WA steelhead, and this was thought to be a conservative OVER estimate, was 3%. Since international enforcement has greatly reduced that activity, like I said, it's the least of our worries.

Sg
 
#182 ·
If we all were to write our legislators we'd be making constructive steps in the right direction. If you don't like CCA's approach then write your own message. Don't blow all the steam on this forum where you're almost certainly preaching to the converted. Keep some in the tank for the legislators in Olympia and D.C.

JR
 
#183 ·
yes, johnnyrockfish, contacting those you help elect is an important part of what needs to be done. engaging in the political process is critical to change. i for one continue with this strategy.

WDFW doing it's job???? that is a real hoot. kind of like the forest circus promoting excessive harvest as their source of revenue was tied to these timber sales. WDFW should be leading not shuffling along with their collective heads up'ther'asses. a totally worthless group of well trained 'experts' who can't find the mens toilet when they need!

and james, i have posted numerous suggestions. i have yet to read one from you.

now folks, carry on, 'cause your shuffling along in single sheep file is doing a big ZERO for the fishes. i have, fortunately, had the opportunity to fish when the runs were stong, and a dozen wild steelhead a day was easy. but here we are, and apparently too few of you care enough to propose solutions or get involved in the political process instead making excuses for the dimwits who should be leading the charge.
 
#185 ·
Once again, we aren't saying that you aren't doing proposals, but rather not offering anything new or novel. Unless you come up with something that will do some good, you're pretty much dooming yourself to following the doomed path of others. Just cause your making a lot of noise doesn't mean you're making any real progress...
 
#184 ·
Your're dead wrong. The tribes had been fishing the runs sustainably for thousands of years. If they had been fishing them to extinction they wouldn't have been able to use the resource for over 9,000 years.
I didn't realize that the tribes (and BEFORE you scream racist, I'm 1/2 Cherokee, 200% sportsman/environmentalist) had jet boats, Loran, ghost nets, etc., 9,000 or even 100 years ago. Beat your head some more . . . we ALL need to sacrifice for the common good, when necessary . . . to date, only SOME do. In the meantime, I'll keep waiting for those who profess to be "one with Mother Earth" to clean-up the mess they seem to leave behind on the Yak & the Columbia every year.
 
#186 ·
suggestions or thoughts are good, but seems to me like this situation is only going to be addressed if meta-solutions are implemented. I don't even know if that's a real word by the way...but what I'm trying to say is:
this thing is so big, such an octopus because of the numbers of players, stakeholders and unknowns that we really need to be looking at
1)reforming the process used to make management decisions
2)forcing some accountability towards the lawmakers and the Commission. no fish=poor results=loss of job
3) properly integrating fisheries management into a total strategy. Salmon in particular are the hingepin that the whole ecosystem swings on, and not feeding the streams and forests is one of the biggest crimes the current policy leads to....but since the effects aren't immediately apparent, are ignored.
Big mistake, that, but one among many.


bottom line, we need to think bigger but have some common sense solutions to implement today...I've been racking my brain ever since this thread started.

perhaps we should all have a brain trust meeting at Meydenbauer this weekend? Over a cold beverage?
 
#192 ·
http://wdfw.wa.gov/commission/meetings/2009/01/jan2809_c3617.pdf

while this isn't exclusively related to tribal netting, I'll offer this link. It's a (yawn) exciting read. But there's some zingers in there.
I listened to the audio transcripts of the conference call that occurred on 28 January. This is all about WDFW trying to achieve an interstate allocation agreement on Columbia River Chinook. Sounds tense.
There are severe constraints on the fishery because both WA and OR are accountable to NOAA for protecting ESA listed Chinook. No fishing seasons can be set till the allocation is agreed upon.
When you look at this policy, note how strongly conservationist it is in language.
Their mandate is responsible conservation. They're trying to take a step toward following it.

The results of this decision will be felt for many years to come, and will affect everyone who fishes the Columbia and its many tributaries. This is a significant portion of the PNW.
I urge every fisherman to contact their representative and let them know if they are satisfied with the status of our anadromous fisheries, or not.
Me?...i'm not satisfied.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top