if it was a simple choice between gill nets and purse seines, i would agree with you profisher. but this is not so simple. what this applies too is commercial fishing below bonneville dam. in this stretch of water you will find a few hundred gill netters. these tend to be family businesses that have been around for a very long time. the opening and closing of the waters is closely monitored and does not span that many days. quotas are tabulated daily because the commercial buyers are required to report each evening. if these relatively inexpensive boats are out of business, it will be seine boats that will become the harvesters. how much does a seine boat cost? a million? so just who will be fishing the lower river, more than likely corporations.
when gary loomis started this whole rant about these gill netters several years ago, he sought to bring in the 500# gorilla the Coastal Conservation Association, a Texas based group who have had great success along the eastern and gulf coasts. i asked him specifically about the nets above Bonneville, he didn't want to talk about this indian fishery. i used to ride my motorcycle up the Oregon side of the river, cross and come back on the Washington side when the netting season was in full swing. in my left hand i carried one of those click counters. Depending on where i chose to cross from one side of the river to the other, 1,500-2,000 bank set gill nets, and that was only from the parts of the river i could see from the highway and no further that Pasco.
so what impact is the introduction of seine boats going to have on helping out wild anadramous fish? we shall see but the real impact will be the elimination of family businesses and the introduction of corporate fishing on the Columbia r. When corporations take over, i become very concerned about the future of this fishery.