Andy Parker: Commercial fishermen question salmon plan

October 29, 2008

 

If you want to get a good raging debate going, just toss out any plan for salmon recovery, as I did in a recent column ("One man's urgent fight to save salmon").

Predictably, the proposal by four biologists, including longtime state biologist and sport fisherman Jim Martin, elicited some praise, lots of questions and tons of criticism.

Martin has been busy in recent weeks trying to sell a five-year pilot program to state leaders that would increase the number of hatchery smolts to be planted in "terminal" coastal fishing grounds, such as Youngs Bay at Astoria.
 

Martin believes that keeping more hatchery fish out of main-stem fishing arteries such as the Columbia River and limiting commercial fishing to terminal fishing grounds would do a better job of preserving both sport and commercial fishing.

There was lots of praise for Martin's plan. But given I've already written about Martin and his plan, I'll give the rest of this space to people who strongly disagree with it.

"I read your column with great pain," wrote Don Stevens of Newberg.

"Jim Martin hasn't changed a bit after retirement as Chief of Fisheries from ODFW," said Stevens, who went on to point out, as I did in the column, that Martin is a consultant for a sportfishing tackle company.

"This is clearly an allocation grab by Mr. Martin from commercial to recreational that will help his company and member businesses of Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association ..."

Stevens said plans from fisheries managers can't be trusted because they always blame commercial fishermen whenever fish runs are down.

"Andy, you need to know that Jim Martin's plan to save wild salmon" on the Columbia River is not really a plan to save the salmon, but rather a complicated reallocation of salmon resource to the sport fishermen and the industries that support his family members association.

Many other commercial fishermen e-mailed similar comments to me.

Dan Vlastelicia wrote: "So, let me try and get this straight.

"Jim Martin, a 40-year sport fisherman, retired director of an agency whose budget has become increasingly dependent on sportfishing/hunting license fees, and now a consultant with a leading fishing tackle company, is leading an urgent fight to save the salmon, not by reducing harvest, but by kicking commercial fishermen off the main-stem Columbia?

"My grandfather's picture is on the wall in the commercial fishing exhibit at the Columbia River Maritime Museum. There is another side to this story waiting to be told. A side that doesn't buy Jim Martin's plan hook, line and sinker."

Steve Fick, who runs fish-processing plants in Astoria and Alaska, called to express his thoughts.

Fick, who said he has been gill-netting for 30 years and sportfishing for more than 40, said commercial fishermen aren't about to agree to any plan that prohibits them from fishing main-stem fisheries like the Columbia.

He says sport fishermen always exaggerate the regional economic impact of sportfishing and downplay the importance of commercial fishing.

Fick believes continued management of fish runs and of the water flows at dams can lead to healthy fisheries.

"It doesn't make sense just to close down commercial fishing. If it's that bad, why wouldn't we close down all fishing -- why should anybody still be fishing?

"Instead, they (sport fishermen) need all my allocation?

"That doesn't make any sense."