"A total of 13,100 salmon and steelhead were caught with purse seines and 7,900 with beach seines. The trap nets were generally ineffective with a total of 39 fish captured for the season, including 10 chinook, 26 coho and three steelhead."

"All three gear types allow the fish to be encircled while leaving them free-swimming. Fish can be identified and released by type or species with a minimum amount of handling."

The Columbia Basin Bulletin is a treasure trove of information about salmon and steelhead and other fish enhancement efforts. Thank God for their reporting, because I see so much other political and bureaucratic bungling and selfishness that you just want to scream sometimes. Trying to bring sanity to commercial harvesting of salmon on the Columbia River, where there are multiple endangered runs, has taken a citizens group, the CCA, to jumpstart the whole thing.

Nobody wants to get rid of the commercial fishermen and the tribal fishing; the communities want a crack at feeding their bodies this good nutritious food. There is so little good food anymore. The commercial fishermen have been around since the mid 1800s and kicked into high gear on the Columbia River when the "Iron Chink" was invented a hundred years ago to allow high speed canning. The Puget Sound machinists beat the Astoria machinists to the punch in inventing it, but didn't slow the Astoria canneries down in adopting the technology.

Back then they used beach seines predominately, drawn in by draft horses. Very effective. When the runs got knocked down with this very efficient method, and especially when engines became available, the gillnet fleet developed. If you want to use the argument that the oldest historical methods should be gone back to, the choice is obvious. Maybe not to the current small gillnet fleet.

And then are we to look back to any historical practice as having 'rights.' These rights are not in the Constitution I go by. The current harvesters, by any means, whether gillnetter, seiner, barbed hook fisher, or barbless hook fisher, have a responsibility to look out for the needs of fellow harvesters and consumers. Even though it seems to be the norm, Americans necessarily need to work together to solve problems. I think the hundreds of thousands of fry-it-in-a-pan type fishermen would gladly all pitch in to buy a purse seiner for every gillnetter to get them to stop willy-nilly killing everything that swam into a gillnet in the Columbia.

My first job at the age of 15 was on a gillnet boat. I know what the mortality rate is. It isn't pretty for the species you don't want to take back to shore. This method of fishing is a good way to catch herring though. The herring school is all that there is there where you set, and your mesh size can even let the little ones swim through to grow up. And if they are used in deep water, they don't hang up on bottom and end up 'ghost fishing' like what happens all the time on the Columbia.

I don't know why I went on and on about the Columbia gillnetters today. I just wanted to call attention to the CBB as a superb news journal on-line. It's not inflamatory as I've been accused of being. And I want to give credit for good work to save the fish runs where credit is due. Thousands of taxpaying citizens flocked to the banner of the Coastal Conservation Association when they started up in the Pacific Northwest a few years ago, because there was no other banner to flock to to get anything done. The runs were going straight to, well, you know. Now there is a lot of rescue work going on. I bothers me when people who do nothing at all, sit in their arm chairs and bash folk like the almost ten thousand CCA members around the Columbia river.

This is the year 2011. You don't have to do the same old thing over and over again and expect different results. I'm talking about gillnetting salmon and expecting it to all of a sudden become a selective fishing method. You can scam the numbers all you want, but it still does not fit the needs of the state of the Columbia River salmon runs in 2011. I've fished with gillnet, purse seine and beach seine and know of what I speak. Even though the beach seining was on a fish farm in Israel.

And while I'm on a roll, here's information from Food and Water Watch on NOAA's run at pushing ocean aquaculture:

"The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is on track to approve the first factory fish farm in U.S. federal waters by issuing a fishing permit and treating its cages as a type of fishing gear. If approved, this would open up the rest of our federal waters to factory fish farming. This means there will be giant cages crammed full of fish eating, excreting and growing with wastes, excess feed and any chemicals used going straight into the ocean through the cages. This isn't fishing!"

We should hold off a sec to see what the Cohen Commission in Canada comes up with as the reason for the Fraser River sockeye runs declining. The baby sockeye swim through waters infested with sea lice from the fish farm cages and they get the life sucked out of them. Many in Canada think the government there has as little concern for the general welfare of the wild salmon as they did for their Atlantic cod, which was almost extinguished altogether. Everyone should look at the Cohen Commission's proceedings at least as an expample of what it would look like in this country if there were some unforseen environmental disaster with the cage fisheries(?). That should be a red flag right there.

THIS SENIOR CITIZEN NAILED IT!!!!!

Alan Simpson, Senator from Wyoming , Co-Chair of Obama's deficit
commission, calls senior citizens the Greediest Generation as he
compared "Social Security" to a Milk Cow with 310 million teats.
August, 2010.

Here's a response in a letter from a unknown fellow in Montana ...
I think he is a little ticked off! He also tells it like it is !
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Hey Alan, let's get a few things straight..

1. As a career politician, you have been on the public dole for FIFTY
YEARS.

2. I have been paying Social Security taxes for 48 YEARS (since I was 15
years old. I am now 63).

3 My Social Security payments, and those of millions of other
Americans, were safely tucked away in an interest bearing account for
decades until you political pukes decided to raid the account and give
OUR money to a bunch of zero ambition losers in return for votes, thus
bankrupting the system and turning Social Security into a Ponzi scheme
that would have made Bernie Madoff proud.

4. Recently, just like Lucy & Charlie Brown, you and your ilk pulled the
proverbial football away from millions of American seniors nearing
retirement and moved the goalposts for full retirement from age 65 to
age 67. NOW, you and your shill commission is proposing to move the
goalposts YET AGAIN.

5 I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying into Medicare
from Day One, and now you morons propose to change the rules of the
game. Why? Because you idiots mismanaged other parts of the economy
to such an extent that you need to steal money from Medicare to pay
the bills.

6. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying income taxes our
entire lives, and now you propose to increase our taxes yet again. Why?
Because you incompetent bastards spent our money so profligately that
you just kept on spending even after you ran out of money. Now, you come
to the American taxpayers and say you need more to pay off YOUR debt.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To add insult to injury, you label us "greedy" for calling "bullshit" on
your incompetence. Well, Captain Bullshit, I have a few questions for
YOU.

1. How much money have you earned from the American taxpayers during
your pathetic 50-year political career?

2. At what age did you retire from your pathetic political career, and
how much are you receiving in annual retirement benefits from the
American taxpayers?

3. How much do you pay for YOUR government provided health insurance?

4. What cuts in YOUR retirement and healthcare benefits are you
proposing in your disgusting deficit reduction proposal, or, as usual,
have you exempted yourself and your political cronies?

It is you, Captain Bullshit, and your political co-conspirators called
Congress who are the "greedy" ones. It is you and your fellow nutcases
who have bankrupted America and stolen the American dream from
millions of loyal, patriotic taxpayers. And for what? Votes. That's right,
sir. You and yours have bankrupted America for the sole purpose of
advancing your pathetic political careers. You know it, we know it, and
you know that we know it.

And you can take that to the bank, you miserable son of a bitch.

If you like the way things are in America , delete this.

If you agree with what a fellow Montana citizen says,

PASS IT ON!!!!

I just have one thing to add to this story, our first line of defense is our local state representatives. This is where to get things off your chest if nothing else. If you are as old as me, get good gardening equipment ready and start to learn the trade. Growing healthy food (remember, they are axing food inspections too) and getting good light exercise will keep you out of harm's way, I mean the doctor's office.

All,

Last week we sent a letter asking the city council of Coos Bay asking them to reconsider their vote for a MR.

We sent the letter in support and at the request of local CCA members. (attached)

There was a city council meeting last night with about 100 in attendance. Mostly locals who were anti-MR.

About 10 were Pro-MR. Susan Allen and Bob Rees from Our Oceans were there.

It was pointed out that about half of the pro-MR folks were paid staff, and just about all from out of the area.

The city council reversed their vote.


At the bottom is the letter the CCA sent to the City of Coos Bay. Kudos to the community of Coos Bay for doing the right thing in both standing up to outside carpetbaggers and to the Council for recognizing when they had made a mistake and correcting it. And to CCA members locally and in the CCA Northwest office for their leadership in this..

After watching how the billionaire Koch brothers have squashed union workers rights in Wisconsin using their politicians, I am greatly encouraged that our system of government may have a breath of life left in it. I'm hoping other communities in Oregon and elsewhere ask themselves the basic question, "why on God's green earth would we want marine reserves near our town anyway?" Or anywhere for that matter. Commercial fishing is disallowed in them as well as for eating by the catcher. Where does limiting our ability to catch or grow something to eat end?

These same folks who are spending the money of murky foundations with equally murky goals for our society, are bedeviling the commercial fishing industry in other ways as well. They aren't maritime people and haven't a clue what should be done. They are pushing to privatize the marine resources, so the very rich can buy them up? Remember that just one multi-billionaire, of which there are plenty, could buy up all the fish in the U.S. EEZ and lock out everyone. And I should remind that there are blueprints for megayacht LSVs (Life Support Vessels) with hydroponic farms and trawl gear. Where are the rich going to get fishing rights in a Waterworld or just pitchforks and torches scenario if not in a 'catch shares' scheme?

All the best,
John

To whom it may concern,

CCA is the Northwest’s largest fisheries advocacy group with 10,000 members in the Pacific Northwest and over 100,000 members nationally in 17 coastal states. We have been involved and engaged in the Marine Reserves issue nationally and in Oregon.

CCA has participated in the OPAC process, the Community Team Process and with the legislature and continue to be involved at all levels.

Our members in the Coos Bay area recently alerted us to the City of Coos Bay’s decision to vote for a Marine Reserve at the Cape Arago site.

We ask you to reconsider this decision for the sake of maintaining viable sustainable fisheries that are well managed and used by the sportfishing community.

Sport anglers have an excellent track record of conservation and supporting sustainable fisheries. We should not be arbitrarily denied access to the Cape Arago site, especially with the lack of scientific evidence supporting this marine reserve.

Please consider our position on Marine Reserves while reconsidering your decision that will have far reaching effects on your community and local fisheries. We urge you to vote no on the Cape Arago site.

Sincerely,

Bruce Polley

Bruce Polley

Vice President

Coastal Conservation Association Oregon