Via the Oregon Mail-Tribune’s consistently excellent outdoor writer (Mark Freeman) comes news of continuing acrimony over fishing access to the Applegate river — where taxpayer-funded hatchery fish remain out of the reach of anglers without connections to private property owners:
Public access on the Applegate has been a recurring abscess in the craws of anglers wanting access to taxpayer-funded hatchery fish in a river flowing almost exclusively over private lands where anglers are increasingly not welcomed — often over bad behavior among a few fishing slobs.
With only a handful of public-access points remaining, some anglers are growing frustrated that the only consistent access to a public resource is by private landowners and their friends.
"It’s the ‘I got mine, the heck with you’ thing we see a lot of," says Chuck Closterman from the Middle Rogue Steelhead Chapter of Trout Unlimited, which submitted the rule change.
"I know they want to keep it for themselves," Closterman says. "But this is a fairness issue."
Sound a little like California’s Fall River in the 70′s (and an increasing number of places today)?
Sadly, access issues will become increasingly common as public access to privately bordered waters grows ever more restricted.
We’ve seen major flareups back east, in Montana, and right here in Siskiyou County. Buckle up, Undergrounders.
You can read more here: MailTribune.com: Applegate River fishing proposal stirs debate
I may be commenting here on something I do not fully understand, seeing I have never even seen a photo of the Rogue much less the Applegate, but her goes. From what i gather most, if not all, of the Applegate River is private and also difficult to navigate in a boat. I am not a big fan of the government using tax dollars to stock water that no one has access to but the landowner. I just strikes me as a waste of taxpayer dollars. I have a question is there not an other river somewhere the state could stock? But, what do I know I’ve never even been steelhead fishing.
Matthew(Quote)
Matthew: Given the somewhat perilous state of salmon and steelhead on the West Coast, I’d guess they’re stocking the river as much for conservation purposes as anything else.
Still, it’s a thorny question, and given that the river doesn’t sound like it’s all that “floatable” a big chunk of the year, I have to wonder how much a “can float” rule will really help. Maybe an Oregon Undergrounder can chime in with a little more info.
Tom Chandler(Quote)
Having only spent the past two winters in the Grants Pass area, I do not know all of the background behind the landowner/fisherman battle on the Applegate. I have been fortunate enough to fish it a handful of times both by wading from the road and floating and wading.
As a selfish, relatively young, steelhead fisherman,who stops at nothing to cast a fly, I love the idea to keep the Applegate to shore only. The river is small, and easily fishable with a fly rod in many places up and down its shore. I have only floated one section of water, and like the article says, the put-it and take-out situation is very tough to say the least. At low/regular flows, it was a very bumpy ride with my drift boat, and in a few places I had to walk it down shallow tailouts, banging my way down. The fishing can be good, but my favorite part is it is left alone by the majority of GP area fisherman because a person cannot fish from their boats. When the Rogue has fisherman re-running pools over and over (with outboards on their drift boats), it is nice to get to water that requires people to work their way down, wading their way through each run.
The issue of private land and navigable water is a tricky one, but there is some great information posted in this thread over at flyfishjefferson.com: flyfishjefferson.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=3525&st=0&sk=t&sd=a
Read down to the bottom of the page, and it should clear up some of the questions about the ability to float the river and wade along its banks.
I am not sure what to think about the hatchery program on the Applegate. Having come from Washington state, where hatchery steelhead programs are kicking out returns that equal to a fraction of one percent, and the returning upper Columbia River hatchery salmon and steelhead cost millions (Dylan Tomine’s article “Tragedy of Steelhead” in Wild on the Fly states that each harvested, hatchery, upper columbia, spring chinook, costs tax payers $68,031!) it’s hard for me to get upset looking at it from a financial level. I would love to see our hatchery programs discontinued so we could really get to the roots of our problems and stop relying on the band-aid effect we receive when we pump a river full of hatchery fish.
Justin Crump(Quote)
Justin: Thanks for the perspective on the river. A few locals head up that way each year, though not all that many.
Legal access issues are always cloudy, though once again I’m surprised at the number of fly fishermen (as evidenced by the Jefferson State Board thread) who are willing to write off access because the river wasn’t declared navigable at statehood.
The same dodge was attempted by the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors (unsuccessfully) during our Natural Resources Nightmare battle to protect our stream access, and it’s dead wrong.
Federal law states if a river is navigable in fact it’s navigable in law.
As for hatchery fish, the cost of the Columbia and Snake river fish is astronomical (in part) because of the trap-and-truck method used to try and get fish around dams.
It’s a method that’s failed miserably, yet that didn’t stop PacifiCorp for proposing its use on the Klamath River.
I have no interest in defending steelhead and salmon hatcheries. I think they bite hard, but also can’t escape the sad fact we’ve limited/degraded spawning habitat to the point that hatcheries may be necessary to maintain some populations — at least until there’s a major reversal in ocean and in-stream conditions.
I’d love to be proved wrong on that one, and believe the Klamath River fight will set the tone for a lot of what’s coming soon in the Northwest.
Tom Chandler(Quote)