PIKE: Tribe takes wrong step

About five years ago, the Washington Department of Fish and Game destroyed the greatest fishery in the Inland Empire. It was a pike fishery on the Pend Oreille River that could yield 150 pounds of fish for us on a good day. Next, the department targeted smallmouth bass and walleye on the Columbia River. Now, the Coeur d’Alene Tribe has a bounty on pike out of fears that they are damaging the trout fishery when it is evident that drought, warming water and habitat loss are the greatest dangers to cutthroat trout. The bounty will decimate the pike fishery in a matter of months with little or no impact on trout. Which non-salmonid fishery will be targeted next? Rumors are that it could be smallmouth on the Pend Oreille.

Therefore, fishing organizations must quickly assemble alliances to resist this aggressive trend threatening some of our most successful and self-sustaining fisheries. There is strength in numbers, and a boycott of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe by united fisherman would be an effective start. This will be my personal course of action.

BRAD SONNTAG

Hayden