Surfing and commercial fishing are SO similar....

Imagine if surfing was made illegal in Oregon because someone claimed it was harming the fish which tourists were flocking to Oregon to fish for.

Oh don't laugh-----------it could happen.
It has happened in a few small islands.
And commercial fishing in Oregon is being attacked by 'environmental superior-ists' who claim that harvesting fish is bad.

Seriously---as a surfer, fisherman, and naturalist---it is really discouraging to think that this really can happen in the U.S.A.
I am an independent which leans towards democratic due to the opinion that democrats seem to think ahead a bit more than republicans.

But mostly I am a logical thinker.
Give me a logical explanation to a situation and my vote is for you.

It has become fashionable to label the harvester as an "extractor".

Loggers, fisherman, and farmers.
Lately they have come under the observation of those who like to label them negatively with words like extractor---devatstator---raper of the land---etc.

I want to encourage you to expand your mind.

I wear patagonia clothes in an effort to promote earth friendliness.
I recycle EVERY thing I can.
I LOVE nature and want to preserve nature as best we can.
I fill my refrigerator with glass jars ---not plastic.

I love wood, metal, glass----and plastic is the 'fog' of the vision of the future I hate to contribute to.

But---- just a radical thought-----have we gone too far?

Are we now pushing out natural harvest?

Will gardens be considered bad for the environment in our future?

I am not a conspiracy freak.
To me---it's just stating something obvious.
I have a first hand view of the situation

I am a commercial fisherman.

Why are the commercial fisherman labeled so negatively?

Do we all have chickens in our back yard, gardens growing wildly, and do we really fish or hunt for every morsel of fish and flesh we eat?

This country has become so infatuated with making every rural and beautiful area into a tourist attraction, or retirement community, that the biggest developers have decided to come against the traditional harvester.

Labels such as
Archaic
Unethical
Un-environmental
Extractor
Devastator

These are all just smokescreens and distractions from the truth.

We are all to blame for the demise of salmon runs.
We all are responsible for the development and industrialization which has harmed salmon and all of our resources.

We all use the power from the dams which killed salmon runs.
We all build houses with wood which is clear cut from the hills of Oregon.

Please stop acting so innocent.
Bust out of your office cubicle a bit and think realistically.

Blaming the commercial fisherman is simply not ethical.

There are fishers, environmental groups, and developers who impact habitat involved in this debate.
All have fundamentally different values and they will never come to perfect agreement.
Continual debate is inevitable.
Hostility towards those involved in natural resource based harvest jobs is growing.

Fisherman know they do not have the time, money or resources to fight back.

But still the hobby fisherman, so called environmentalists, and developers continue to push the fisherman down and paint a negative picture about their livelihood.
There are people in the U.S.A. claiming to be "environmentally superior" to others. And the sad fact is that many of those 'superior' people live in urban areas and are often afraid to move out to a space more environmentally enriching and safe for their own family.

It really is a shame.

The resources this country was built upon.
The resources we have, and harvest, to other countries have diminished.
We have replaced these things with all the plastic crap in our houses.
And now we export our jobs.

Are intel, nike tennis shoes or microsoft, our new solutions to resource wealth in the NW?

What happened to the hard working, harvesting, people of the United States of America?

Next we will export our children---to work in other countries---to make goods for U.S. consumers.

Children from rural communities are already leaving their home towns and families.
And we wonder why the family values in the U.S.A. are in decline.
They have no promise in the rural region harvest jobs of their father or mother.

These kids are told they can find better work if they move to urban areas, go to college, and strive for a desk job in a cubicle.

And so many anti commercial salmon fisherman people are in favor of this.

What is happening?

I am in favor of making our natural resources in the U.S.A. a number one priority.
My U.S.A. is not just for these "new frontiersmen" who's hobbies, retirement communities, and tourism revolve around the Disneyland version of Oregon I was born into ----and proudly fight to preserve.

Keep Oregon clean, green and mean.

Do we really think that the tourists, and so called conservationists, will take better care of our home than we will?

Is it really the solution to bring in people from all over to go on a guide boat and catch all our fish?

We have goods, and hard working people to make and harvest those goods.
There is a way to balance this out ethically.

There is NO guarantee that the new frontier of "environmentally superior minded" folk will govern with a preservation ethic by which the land or resources preserved will even be made ACCESSIBLE by all.

We who are truly environmentally minded...
We have LIVES and JOBS which revolve around the natural ways of the earth.
We want the earth to sustain a healthy way of being.
We want to harvest, and re harvest, for generations to come.
We want the salmon to propegate for without them we do not have a LIFE.

We do not want to lose any of the existing species of animals, or humans, which currently exist.
We are naturalists and we want nature to thrive.

We believe that there is a way to balance the supply of salmon with the needs of man.

And we also recognize that the urban dwelling--- so called 'environmentally superior'---- minded person is in conflict with our way of life.

We believe those proud and 'superior' people have the power to change laws.
But those people may lose everything -----by trying to save something so irresponsibly.

Read the FINE PRINT.

What a week.

It's been unusually warm here---as you all know who live here.
February is hit or miss.
This year it's been a hit.
Here is a great picture by Mark of Cannon Beach surf shop.

February---
12 days of good surf.
2 days of kitesurfing.
5 days of pole fishing.
Sunday we begin net fishing.

Can't go on enough about how frustrating the attempted gill net ban is.
A small group of people with money.
That small group has one agenda.
They want all the fish to themselves.
They claim they are innocent.
That their poles and hooks never damage any fish.
I know better.
Any real fisherman knows better.
Their hooks kill.
And there were thousands of wild stock salmon caught with hooks....
thrown into pickups and smuggled home illegally.

The anglers claim they never kill any wild salmon.
BS.
A net catches a salmon.
If it's a wild born salmon (the adipose fin is not clipped off like the hatchery born fish) we can let it go....alive.

The gillnet fishery is a completely sustainable fishery.
The fish are hatched in the hatchery---let go to the ocean---and they return 3 to 7 years later (to die) and we harvest them.

It's amazing.
Beautiful.
Technology cannot compete with nature's ways.
There is still no logical explanation for how the salmon KNOW where to return.
It's nature.

But I can see the greedy television advertisements now.
Saying we are killing whales, dolphins, seals....what a bunch of garbage.
Claiming we hate nature.
Claiming we hate salmon.
Nothing could be further from the truth.

But three men can have a huge voice.
With enough money.
And enough greed in their blood.

Such is this new way of living in 2010.
One person, such as myself, can type words and they are read all around the world.
Ashton Kutcher can have 1,000,000 followers watching him on twitter.
The world has become so small---in so many ways.

Using this fact to their advantage---- two rich guys and a lawyer decide to try and change the Oregon economy and the native Oregonian's way of living.

Walter Fondren (heir to the Exxon fortune...big oil man) and definitely NOT from Oregon.

Loren Parks of Nevada(made millions from a sexual hypnotism scam)

Kevin Mannix (whacko republican attorney)

These three men write up a measure for the citizens to vote on.

They use their money to collect 82,000 signatures.

They recruit sport (pole angler) fisherman.
They convince these fisherman that when the gillnets are gone there will be more fish for the poles to catch.

Even though the Federal government, the state of Oregon, and the state of Washington all watch intensely until too many endangered fish are caught---and then halt ALL fishing.
Even though with no gillnets the EXACT SAME NUMBER of endangered fish will be caught----just by anglers only.


The sportfisherman just don't want to share the sandbox.
Yet the gillnetter has never attacked the sportfisherman.
Even though the sport fishing fleet kills FAR MORE fish than the gillnetters.

The greedy anti group knows the traditional gillnet fisherman doesn't really like sitting in front of computers.
Most are too busy outside fixing nets, their boats, and helping each other work.

So---- it won't be too tough of a fight to beat down the traditional commercial fisherman.

When 82,000 signatures are gathered they throw an issue on the ballot in Oregon.
An issue that is CLEARLY misunderstood by 80% of Oregon.
And the people of Oregon vote.
Portland, Corvallis, Salem, Bend, Junction City, Eugene.
Most of those people have never touched a live salmon.
Most don't even know that the salmon running up the river are running up to spawn and die before we catch them.

Most don't know that 90% of the fish in the river were hatched in a hatchery---paid for by gillnetters and subsidized by the power companies who are paying the gillnetters back from the damage of the dams (which blocked the migration of salmon to their spawning grounds)


If the gillnets are banned ---Oregon will lose another 20 million dollar industry.
Salmon meat was one of the first industries in Oregon.
How sad that these men have such personal interest in destroying so much.

If you vote.

Please vote NO ON 74.

Hundreds of families will thank you that dad still has a job working hard in the river.

These boats are all single manned boats.
Self sufficient one man operations.
Sole proprietorships.
Small businesses in which our country was built on.

Without the salmon industry in the river you will have to buy fish raised in farms.

Salmon which never go to the sea---they are born in a pen and raised there.
Fed by pellets which contain 10 times the cancer causing PCB's of a natural salmon.

Their flesh is then dyed pink to look like it went to the ocean.

You eat that costco farmed salmon---and you are eating a little Red dye number 5.

Farmed fish are the alternative to gillnetting.
And a horrible alternative.

You can bet the anti gillnet campaign won't let the animal rights activists know that farming salmon is the alternative to gillnettting them.

Vote no on 74 and let these special idea money men get on to other things.
Leave our state alone.

Walter Fondren can go back to slinging his oil around bays like he did in the Exxon Valdez spill.
Without commercial fisherman in our river maybe he can mess up our river too---Throw a few liquid natural gas facilities up---which are already being proposed.

With gillnets out of the way he won't have any commercial fisherman to pay off for any damages he causes to the salmon while building those giant facilities on the river banks.

Kevin Mannix can try again for some public office and fail again.

Loren Parks can spend time hypnotizing sexual addicts---and making millions doing so.

And the gillnetters who have fished this river for over 200 years will breathe easy another year.

Until another group decides they want the fish and attacks us again--- next year.

More on the attempt to ban commercial fishing on the Columbia River.

A completely sustainable harvest of fresh wild fish----in our beautiful state.

Sport fisherman want to have all the salmon to themselves.
So they are telling horrible lies about gillnetting and attempting to set themselves up as saviors to our amazing salmon.

But they are not saviors.
In fact sport fisherman killed so many endangered fish in 2009 that Oregon and Washington department of fish and wildlife told to stop fishing....or face penalty.

The sport fisherman are a large group with a lot of money---and they are financially backed by big oil companies like Exxon who also want commercial fishing "out of the way" for other ventures.

If the law is voted on by the general public of Oregon it could be a horrible case of misinformed votes--------even though the voters are only trying to do what is best.

To clear up the MYTH about gillnetters 'killing endangered species of wild salmon' you can see this video clearly defines how we MUST revive wild stock salmon (born in the wild and not tagged) and release them to the wild again.

We commercial salmon fisherman want nothing more than to have the salmon runs grow to historic levels.
It would mean more salmon for everyone and an opportunity for us all to earn a little better living too.

Don't sign ANY petition or vote for anything regarding commercial fishing on the Columbia river until you look deeper into the subject and are sure to listen to both sides of the story.

This video is hosted by fisherman Darren Crookshank who demonstrates the revival process of wild salmon.

It is important to note that 93% of the fish we catch were hatchery born and bred fish, not native fish which we gladly put back in the river.

It is also most important to note that a hook and line sport fisherman will fight the fish all the way to the edge of the boat and they are NOT required to revive the fish. Many times a sport fisherman catches a fish, fights it to the boat, unhooks it and it floats away.

In addition, hook caught salmon commonly swallow the hook and it kills them when the hook is removed. Even though the sport fisherman puts the fish back in the water.

Sport fishing is not innocent ----though they claim to be.

Tanglenet Fishing on the Columbia River: A Sustainable Fishery from Lawrence Johnson on Vimeo.

No need to be crabby

Crab boiling in a pot.
Low tide clam digging in the early morning.
Clam strip appetizers.
Last summer's salmon on the grill.
Vegetables from the summer garden are steaming.

The swell is friendly this week.
But still head high or above.

Grey skies.
No worries.
Even the elk are happy.
They are not being hunted at this time.

Too much to be happy about.

And when the sun peaks out
for the sunset...
It's time to play guitar.

Home sweet home.