Thanks to daylight savings time I can no longer fish the Nooksack after classes due to a lack of time. So, I turn my attention to Whatcom Creek.

I was very unimpressed with the level of sportsmanship that I saw there. That was to be expected. Everyone was snagging. There was literally not a single fish properly hooked. I heard some guy say "I can't see how you find passion in this, its so easy for you" to another fisherman who had just snagged his 3rd fish in a row. I really can't see that connection either, but passion probably has nothing to do with it.

I moved away from the crowds onto the opposite side of the bank and started slinging metal. You can't use jigs here, because of an anti-snag rule LOL. So I turned to dick nites instead. Got a take and fish on. Was a really big chum, forgot that my drag was set to deal with 8lb line, and not 15lb... so he screamed away and into the logs... breaking me off. Oh well. I did catch a chunky little sculpin later, which totally makes up for the lost chum.

Oh well, there will be another time. Lots of dark fish, a couple bright(ish) ones too.

There were police officers down there but they weren't doing anything about the snaggers and such. Actually they were being educated by a citizen about which fishing practices are legal and which are illegal at that spot Good on him; he also gave me advice about what is legal and illegal here. Hopefully sometime the officers will do something about it.

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People say "they're just chums." It's sort of sad that this mentality arises among anglers. Chums are still a pacific salmon, and just because they don't have the flavor of kings or silvers doesn't mean that it is okay to snag them. Do you really think that if they were silvers instead of chums people would fish ethically for them? Hell no they wouldn't. People snag kings all the time. I see folks trying to net and grab steelies up at Reiter in the low water and the hatchery creek. Seriously. It's such a condensed area. They need to pay someone to net every chum at the stairway and release the ones that are foul hooked. That way the snaggers, who usually aren't out for sport, don't get any meat. Maybe then they'll stop. I told one guy that a fish he caught was foul hooked, and when I told him it needed to be released, he got mad at me and bonked it. Pisses me off.

There are people that fish legally here too and hook fish in the mouths. Just a sadly small portion of anglers.

Lots of people just turn a blind eye to these combat-type fishing spots, but I find them hard to ignore. Why do we cast a blind eye on these spots instead of having a moderator or something? Granted, the urban atmosphere leads to combat fishing regardless. I stay away from the wall, and wouldn't be there at all if I had more time. But our fish are being wrongfully taken from us. People get up in arms when someone poaches a lion and start kickstarter funds and sh*t to help save lions, but when it comes to our salmon (hatchery or wild) people get mad but no action is taken.

I think it's about time that we change.