When I started fishing, flossing didnt exist! You saw mostly float fishers, fly fishers, and some fisher hucking hardware. There were few fareweather fisherman and more dedicated fisherman on any run, on any river. Fast forward to today and the flossers and people fishing with no float and long leaders OUTWEIGH the float fisherman. If you surveyed the entire river (vedder) I bet on the average day there are more flossers than true fisherman.
I also venture a guess (yes a guess) that if a fareweather fisher couldn't catch a salmon to save his life then he would not spend $70 odd on a lisence. Maybe some would, but the masses wouldn't.
"there are more people fishing today" you don't think that has anything to do with flossing making salmon very accessible to new fishers? To me flossing is cheating, fishers rob themselves of the learning process and this shortcut IMO reduces apprecaition for the process.
You aren't coming close to understanding it so I'll spell it out for you:
"You can't tell me that someone who is willing to poach a fish today wasn't willing to poach a fish before flossing" NO i am not saying that at all. I am suggesting that flossing is bring out and creating more fishers who don't understand nor respect the system/fishery.
And then you even acknowledge my point by saying: "there are many more people today willing to do whatever they feel they have a right to do no matter how they have to go about doing it. Granted most of those probably go about the route of flossing or snagging because it is seen as easier.
EXACTLY...thanks for making my point.
When I started fishing, it was the same, few fair weather fisherman although a lot in WA were casting dick nights and pencil lead or winged bobbers or whatever you call them. Saw very few fly fishermen down there ever and nobody using a float. Those were simpler times though, and calmer. There has been an inflow of people to the area from all areas, over seas, California, Mexico, etc. They all came with their previous history of fishing and ethics and all of that. There are more people fishing but there are many more people in the area living and working here.
For some people, they floss because they consider it easy, they can set the hook often and "catch" fish. Before flossing, you suggest these people weren't fishing but I remember growing up running into some just like them. Like I said though, it was a different time. Back then if a fisherman saw someone snagging, they would be approached and run off, or DFO would be there and lock them up. Now, if a fisherman approaches a snagger, they so do knowing there is a greater than 0 chance a gun could get pulled. There have been guys shot because of it. DFO is rarely around. Without supervision and people calling them out, people with less ethics than people had back in the day do what they do. It used to be they had to try and hide it. I saw a number of hooks tied directly onto a weight, or weird treble hook setups that were obviously for snagging. And this was in the 70s and 80s. It was happening, just not near as frequently as flossing happens and definitely more hidden.
Also, I hate to tell you this, but in the rivers in WA, there are many more people fishing than I saw growing up too. Flossing is not an issue there. There are guys that are lucky to catch a fish all season long. They are still out there. This isn't a problem unique to the Fraser or Vedder or just in Canada. Check out the Sammish river sometime if you don't believe me. They float fish there too if you want to call it that. They have a float on. A lot of guys put a little bit of egg on and then rig it so the hook is outside and while the eggs are on the bottom, the hook is pointing downstream to gut shot any fish that comes by. You think that is because of flossing?
Face it. People these days suck. Few have any ethics worth mentioning on anything they do, including fishing. They occupy every part of the river. You could outlaw flossing completely and you wouldn't get rid of them. They would find another way because for them, the end justifies the means. Whatever they have to do to get their fish, they will do it.
Getting a fish to bite is awesome and outsmarting the fish and enticing a strike is awesome, whether it is with a fly, or a spoon, or a plastic worm for bass or any other way. There are many that don't care about this though. A majority of them gravitate toward flossing because it is legal and the way they do it is easy. If it was made illegal, they wouldn't just leave, they would do something else. You are blaming the method many of them have chosen, not the lack of ethics. Outlawing the method won't change the underlying issue and won't fix anything.
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Topic: Right or wrong? (Read 23870 times)