Sept 27 Letters to the Editor

Close the season

The Idaho Department of Fish and Game has closed the Clearwater River to all steelhead fishing. Fish and Game also closed the Snake River to just above Asotin.

The department calls the proposal necessary to assure filling hatchery brood stock needs, but it fails to mention effects on Endangered Species Act-listed wild steelhead.

The proposed regulation will inevitably increase fishing pressure on ESA-listed wild steelhead upstream from Asotin in the Snake River and the entire Salmon River. The measure would increase “incidental” mortality in the disastrously low wild fish numbers.

I believe the proposal aims to placate outfitters and business interests who would resist a complete fishing closure upstream from Asotin and in the main Salmon River. But I also believe those groups are better than that. Comments by some guides have been encouraging, with several stating that the very critically low run size mandates that the escapement needs of the fish should come first.

Steelhead are indeed in a crisis mode.

Fish and Game should close all fishing for steelhead in the entire Snake River basin for fall, winter and spring.

Don Chapman

McCall