Longtime B.A.S.S. conservation writer Robert Montgomery produced a column recently on the status of the revered smallmouth fisheries in Washington and Oregon, where creel limits have been removed in an effort to protect salmon, steelhead and trout. During a single week in early May, 41 anglers interviewed by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife reportedly kept 362 fish from the Yakima River and released only 13.
"I wonder if those meat anglers are even thinking about the depletion of the fishery, or what they will fish for next year when the salmon runs are still low and the smallmouth bass fishery has been decimated," Oregon B.A.S.S. Nation conservation director Lonnie Johnson told Montgomery. "Probably not, I would guess. They're thinking, 'Let's live in the moment and let tomorrow be damned.'"
To read the column, click here.
