Saving the salmon

Recreational anglers take to the political process to protect wild salmon stocks

By Erica Ryberg

The South County Spotlight, Dec 30, 2009 (1 Reader comment)

Erica Ryberg / The South County Spotlight

FISH LOVER — Ed Rabinowe is an avid fisherman and president of the local chapter of the Coastal Conservation Association, which advocates for maintaining wild fish stocks.

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When Ed Rabinowe moved to Deer Island, the avid fisherman immediately joined two fly-fishing clubs. Six years later, the outspoken New York native is the president of a local chapter of an organization that has filed a ballot measure to change the face of commercial fishing on the Columbia River.

After 40 years of fly fishing, he soon started learning how to fish the ‘big river’ – the Columbia. In the process, he learned about the challenges that big river fish – notably wild salmon – face in their annual runs to spawn.

In 2007, he collaborated with other fisherman, including Gary Loomis, of graphite fly rod fame, to establish the Pacific Northwest chapter of the Coastal Conservation Association, a group that advocates for recreational fishing and for maintaining wild fish stocks, many of which are on the endangered species list.

“People live here because they enjoy fishing,” he said of Columbia County’s 400-member strong chapter.

And that he said, makes for an extremely vocal, extremely dedicated membership. But managing those anglers is a bit like, well, herding fish.

“Fisherman are a fiercely independent lot,” he said.

It takes regional management, Rabinowe said, to “take all those parts and move them in the right direction.”

Currently, the right direction for the group appears to be work on a ban on the gillnet, the commercial fishing industry’s dominant tool for working the Columbia River.

The problem with gillnets, Rabinowe said, is that they’re hard on the fish they catch. Salmon that can’t swim have a hard time breathing. And while commercial fisherman should only be catching hatchery salmon, said Rabinowe, wild salmon also get caught and endure a traumatic process to be separated and returned to the water.

Their time in the gillnet and on the fishing boat often leaves them worse for the wear, he said, something that the region’s wild salmon populations can’t afford.

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