[Phatjak]

Is anyone else as disturbed by the Tribal net schedule for the Quillayute river system as I am. Schedule is for 5 days a week, Monday thru Friday from 12/24 thru 1/25. This would appear to be at the peak of the run. And then it drops to 4 days per week thru the end of March. It seems to me that at the peak of the run they could drop the number of days down to say 3 and then for the end of the run go up to say 4. 5 days a week will quickly wipe out a healthy run. IMHO

 

[Webo]

The peak of the Bogey brats is ALREADY over. That schedule is pretty much the same one they use every year. This year the Tulalips are over there netting with the Quileutes!

 

[Phatjak]

It looks to me, looking at the creel report on the WDFW, that the peak was at about the same time that they went in. They started netting 5 days a week on 12/24. There was a good push early in December, but 1000 hrs of fishing for 50 fish? Was that the peak you're talking about Webo? And the Duc will peak in a couple of weeks.

 

[WaFlyCaster]

IMHO... if the tribes dont stop excessively netting steelhead rivers, they are going to wipe out the runs... its' great that they "traditionally" get to net rivers...but if they dont stop netting they wont have any "tradition" to continue....

 

[mavsled]

its simply about dollars $$$

smaller supply of steelies will only increase the price to the tribes and thus the tribes will fish till there are no fish left. Simply dollars and simple but devasting greed.
State is utterly and unpowered to do anything about tribal fishing. The tribes tell the WDFW where they can stick it. Some co-managing of the resource.

heck, there is even a net now in the Green river at the 190th street area near my plunking hole by my office!
Tribal guy comes there each am to check and pull chrome natives (one fish about #18 lbs today!) and reset his net. At one time this afternoon, I walked down the trail and spotted 5 chromers gilled in the net. 2 of these were high teeners! Sure pisses me off...

 

[Chuck S]

argh.

 

[powder]

I simply don't understand how our government is letting our fisheries go to s*** like that.

 

[Chuck S]

I simply don't understand how our government is letting our fisheries go to s*** like that.

Powder - this government is making many decisions behind closed door meetings with the tribes and other groups so that they avoid any real pressure. They speak with one tongue and act with another and it is only a matter of time before our fisheries will be defunct. The sportsman is not the issue ... way bigger.

 

[gonefishin]

I simply don't understand how our government is letting our fisheries go to s*** like that.

Powder - this government is making many decisions behind closed door meetings with the tribes and other groups so that they avoid any real pressure. They speak with one tongue and act with another and it is only a matter of time before our fisheries will be defunct. The sportsman is not the issue ... way bigger.

Absolutely correct. Steelheaders. Our days are numbered. A sad but true fact. Greed will kill it. :evil: :x

 

[powder]

I simply don't understand how our government is letting our fisheries go to s*** like that.

Powder - this government is making many decisions behind closed door meetings with the tribes and other groups so that they avoid any real pressure. They speak with one tongue and act with another and it is only a matter of time before our fisheries will be defunct. The sportsman is not the issue ... way bigger.

Yeah, i know it's a bunch of behind the scenes crap that no one ever knows about. I can see the day when we no longer are releasing natives because no ones caught one in forever. Makes me sad.

 

[Phatjak]

I simply don't understand how our government is letting our fisheries go to s*** like that.

Powder - this government is making many decisions behind closed door meetings with the tribes and other groups so that they avoid any real pressure. They speak with one tongue and act with another and it is only a matter of time before our fisheries will be defunct. The sportsman is not the issue ... way bigger.

Yeah, i know it's a bunch of behind the scenes crap that no one ever knows about. I can see the day when we no longer are releasing natives because no ones caught one in forever. Makes me sad.

And now that the tribes have gambling, which translates to BIG BUCKS, we are really screwed.

 

[WaFlyCaster]

I want all of you to make a analysis of the state of washington anadramous fish runs over the past 40-50 years..... What have we done to our to the salmon and steelhead that symbolize this territory??? Well we have contributed alot of pollution, over harvesting(ocean and rivers) and destroyed LOTS and LOTS of viable spawning and crucial rearing habitat of salmon and steelhead... Now there is no ONE party to blame on this its many many many small and some times large problems like poorly placed dams (like on the elwha, green, white, cedar, skagit, cowlitz, lewis, snake, and need i forget the columbia river)....what would our fisheries be like if those dams werent built? how about if just a few of them werent built? well I know i wish i could have been alive before those were built to see what it was like... but that cant happen... but ya can always dream about how awesome that would have been to fish!

Here is one example of how things have changed... back in the early 1900's the farmers in the puyallup valley used to pull their horse drawn wagons out to the middle of the river and pitch fork live salmon into their wagons and dump them on their fields and til them under for fertilizer!!! think that would fly in todays world? hell no... so why are SOME tribes sooo SLOW on figuring out that we dont have the unlimited resources that we once had 100 years ago and that we cant net the puyallup, green etc and get these last few native fish that are barely struggling to keep a species from going extinct.... what will it take??? have you asked any of them???? do you think they are getting top dollar for a steelhead thats been dead in a river over night or longer??? think again! plus most informed fish buyers will not by wild steelhead ...let alone many markets will not carry it. In my opinion any tribe which is collecting mega bucks at casinos and doing tribal netting of fish must put millions into fixing the resource rather than destroyed what is left of it....

I dont have any problem with a tribe running/funding a hatchery and netting the hell out of that run of fish (quinalt, makah etc)... but what i dont understand is the green river, puyallup, nooksack, etc have state run fish hatcheries which are run by state dollars(which are getting very small) and these state generated fish are getting netted by tribes..... which then again collect mega casino dollars???? hmmmm is this correct? maybe some of you should write your local gov't officials??? should tribes contribute big bucks to get hatcheries pumping out fish like say the cowlitz river???

But then again the quinalt and makah fish hatcheries are both run jointly by the US fish and wild life service... so how much funding is coming from the feds??? and how much is coming from the tribes? maybe a solution is to cut off funding for hatcheries all together so no fish come back... and thus netting would be almost pointless (as it is already for winter steelheading on puget sound streams) then maybe the tribes would decide to stop??? Are we really funding their fishing by providing them the fish?

One more point...... how much worse has the fishing gotten since the boldt decision passed??? is that due to the netting or is that due to all the other environmental factors? or is it a combo of both?

 

[mavsled]

successful tribal casinos bring in the dollars, the more dollars a tribe has, the more power achieved to ensure the protection of their treaty rights against government or other interests in trying to dam the flow of power the tribes will distribute in solidifying their special interests.... ultimately to wrest fish management from the state entirely and cash in on the $$$ of the sportsfishing recreational industry themselves; permits for rivers, special licenses, regulation of who can fish when & where, look at the Quinault regulating their river (s)! Pay to Play, whether its casinos, resorts or sportsfishing will become all tribes ultimate cash cow. Mark these words and lets see after 20 more years...or less.

any/all feeble sportsman organizations without government backing or funding will always lack the power that $$ funding provides to fight for our recreational privileges. The last 15 years have proven this. Really, other than media spoonfeeding (ie good pink salmon run expected for sportsfishermen etc-whoopee!) from the state powers that be to overshadow the more desired sportsfish runs (chinook, coho)....
what has changed?!

in the area of WA state fish management, the only users being managed are the sportsfishermen and this group will take it in the shorts everytime. The tribes will not be beat, non treaty commercials & highly vested industries (i.e. Logging) will continue to rule and ultimately the fish runs will suffer.

Sound similar to history of over 200 years ago....Boston tea party and such.

 

[GillRaker]

Safeway ad came out yesterday displaying Steelhead for $6.99 Tdown:

 

[kelson]

This is a very complicated issue that from my perspective gets even more complicated as time goes by. Wasn't there a post recently suggesting that the Tokul hatchery might be purchased and run by a tribal entity? State and local government can apply pressure, but remember this is a federal issue resulting from a federal ruling on a federal treaty.... Although they haven't had to deal with treaty rights in the past, this is why I support CCA. They work at the federal level.

 

[WaFlyCaster]

the tribes may have the casino dollars to defend their treaties but they wont be able to cover up their own mess they create in some cases... go down and look at the mess they leave all over the banks (lower puyallup for example).... the derelict nets they leave in the river... the trashed out RV's and cars... the fire works ... the tires... the etc, etc.... the boldt decision is based on their traditional right to harvest anadromous fish for a lively hood, not trash out a river and pollute it... and the generation of tribal members that are netting the local rivers show no respect to the environment and the fish they harvest... heck they harvest the chums ...take the eggs and throw the carcasses back in the river ...(how is that traditional?) the situations im thinking of they are using the Army Core of engineers dike to stage their netting base...and they completely trash it and leave it like that... and someone else ends up having to pay for the clean up.... and their are at least 25 derelict nets i know of in a couple mile stretch of that lower river near 11th street bridge over puyallup... go down there on a minus tide a take look for yourself...its horrible and not the way the boldt decision was intended to serve the tribe.

Its only a matter of time before enough evidence of environmental wrong doing is found from some tribes before their rights are taken away or regulated by someone other than their own enforcement which doesnt seem to know how they SHOULD be enforcing it... ...no matter how many dollars they have to defend it... for you guys that posted above that the nets are being left in over night or days at a time... call the net into the WDFW poacher hotline or the local tribal police dept... as a derelict net... get somebody out there and get it removed...

Here is something more to think about

http://angleronthefly.blogspot.com/2007 ... tting.html

 

[WaFlyCaster]

another point the tribes are NOT immune to fines and new laws because they are destroying the environment... several tribes have been fined for not meeting water quality standards on their outfalls into rivers, lakes, and the bay.... so if they can be fined for that... they can surely be fined for trashing a river with nets and garbage.

 

[dpreston]

Hey guys,

Thought I'd fill you in some on the fishery.

The tribe tries to focus their fishery on hatchery steelhead, so they fish more when hatchery fish are in the water. The tribe helps out with the hatchery production by taking about 130,000 eggs from Bogachiel Hatchery to their Lonesome Creek facility. The tribe does all the feeding and fin clipping over there and then ships them back over to Bogachiel where they are released.

The fishing schedule is similar each year, but is also adjusted according to returns. As the run switches to predominantly wild fish, fishing days will be reduced, as it is each year. Catch is monitored daily and the state and tribe talk to make sure there’s enough fish getting up river to spawn.

Also, only registered Quileute tribal members or their spouses (the only case when a non-Quileute would fish is with spousal rights) who have lived in Clallam County for at least 9 months can fish in Quileute tribal fisheries. Spouses who are not Quileute tribal members can only fish below the Richwine bar. Even a Quileute tribal member who lives in Puget Sound can’t fish unless he/she has established residency in Clallam County.

The Quileute Tribe’s natural resources department puts a lot of effort into habitat improvements for salmon and steelhead in the Quillayute watershed. Culverts that block salmon and steelhead from important spawning and rearing habitat have been removed, bridges have replaced culverts that were never going to work and woody debris that's important for salmon and steelhead rearing and spawning was added to places like the Dickey River.

And you know that big tall weed that was making it hard to get to your favorite fishing hole? The tribe is also involved in a multi-year effort to remove the invasive knotweed that threatens fish populations by replacing important streamside trees and their critical function in salmon habitat. You can especially see the difference on the Dickey and Calawah rivers.

The tribe, without a casino, does this work with the funds available, mostly grants and some federal dollars in absence of other agencies or individuals doing this work. These improvements benefit everyone, including sports fishermen.

If you want more information on the Quileute Tribe, check their Web site at http://www.quileutetribe.org/

If you are interested in more information about habitat work by the tribes, troll through the Northwest Indian Fisheries Web site at http://www.nwifc.org.

 

[Team Aire]

Don't ask George Bush. He wants to count hatchery fish as native and log the national forests. Put that together with Indian greed and you better hope they can figure out a way to grow white fish in to the 10lb class. We can call them whitehead! Or, maybe steelwhite. Or, how about metalwhite? Or,whitesteel. The only problem is the indians would want to net them, too. It's kind of like "In your face white boy!" I sometimes think they net just to show us what's up! Maybe we can invent a video game called "Net the Sh!t Out of a River". Or, how about a slot machine that spits out a steelhead if you win. That way they can keep everything in the casinos!

 

[Fishin Bear]

The tribes right to net the rivers is the law of the land as decided by the US Supreme court when they upheld the Boldt Decision. The tribes have since created vast wealth in the casino business and contribute heavily to many of our elected officials including the Governor, in return it appears that the tribes gambling interests are pretty secure.

Do we believe the Tribes are using this (and all of the other federal aid they get) to help them assimilate into our society and make the transition from "vicitms" to prosperous and contributing citizens whose children will be able to compete? No, they continue to practice their culture instead of adjusting it to the society in which their children or grandchildren will someday need to compete. I fully suport teaching the culture but it doesn't work well in today's society to practice it and expect to be compensated at a level beyond what the global market provides.

If the tribes were serious about preparing for the day when they compete off the reservation you would expect to see some tribal members in the corporate world in roles like managers, accountants, analysts, salespeople engineers etc.,,,they are not there from what I can see and I have a pretty good view. In my opinion they have missed a great opportunity to educate themselves and enjoy the benefits associated with that level of skill.

In my opinion there are two actions that might influence the tribes blatant disregard for the resource and for the hand that feeds them.

First: We can stop spending money at tribal casinos and gofl courses, we have complete control over this. I love the golf course at Dungeness but no longer host a tournament there because of where the money goes, it's my only voice!

Second (this is a long shot that requires an attorney): We can demand that the federal government re-negotiate the Medicine Creek Treaty, if we can re negotiate a nuclear arms treaty we can certainly handle this if the ploitical will is there (a big if).

I guess a third action would be to quit fishing in Washington and thereby stop funding the sport.

I believe the tribes and the state practice the theory of "elasticity" on the sportsfishermen in that they give us just enough to keep us spending money and hoping to catch a fish, never enough to make us happy or feel we are treated failry, just enough to prevent a full scale mutiny.