Editor’s desk

Custer’s Last Stand – again – You’re not going to like this

When a befuddled gambler hits a megapalooza jackpot on a nickel slot, you’d think the boys in Vegas wouldn’t be too eager to publicize their loss.

And you’d be wrong.

The Vegas PR machine redlines: photos, press releases, hometown TV interviews, the works. Why? Big winner for small wager = great PR.

Turn the page.

When the Northwest hake fleet hit its rockfish bycatch quota in July, it could have been good PR. I’m not suggesting trumpets from the 36th floor of the Bellagio. But the fleet could at least have boasted that rules are rules — regardless how misguided — and that fishermen followed them.

That’s the ideal. But that’s not what happened.

Instead, our neighbors heard that commercial fishermen killed and squandered rockfish to avoid a bycatch closure.

Most egregious were the final circumstances: Fish cops made a 3 a.m. visit to a processor in Westport. There, they found totes of rockfish awaiting the grinder that would destroy the evidence, according to authorities.

NOAA closed the Pacific whiting fishery and told the press why. What might have been a small story — if a story at all — mushroomed into a tale of modern buccaneers breaking the rules, stealing, and wasting the public’s fish.

Even if the folks behind these incidents are eventually found blameless, the damage has been done in the minds of our neighbors.

Here’s why it’s important: Our neighbors vote, and there are a hell of a lot more of them than there are of us.

In our August issue, the new president of United Fishermen of Alaska — Joe Childers — had this to say: “Our next big challenge is to keep access to the fisheries.”

Same goes for the Lower 48. The big argument won’t be about the rockfish bycatch ceiling. Rather, it will be whether you can get on the water at all.

The big news coming out of California this summer wasn’t disaster funds or a meager Chinook troll season. It was the lockdown of some of the most productive fishing waters off the state.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Warner Home Video) beamed and took credit, leading to distasteful groveling by Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski, asking his southern colleague to teach the backward folks of Oregon how to do the same.

And how do you think Oregonians will vote if asked to decide on marine protected areas? Will they respond when the fleet says “trust us” to care for the public’s resource?

In struggling for a historical metaphor for Whitingate, I paused with Masada, a mountain overlooking the Judean Desert. There, Hebrew patriots hurled themselves over its stony ramparts in a very final act of revolt from Rome’s pagan legions. They lost for a good cause but made a statement in their going.

But, no. A better poster boy is Gen. George Armstrong Custer, who rode to glory at the Little Bighorn. Of course, George believed he was right as rain but ended up deader than dirt.

A country named Israel now owns Masada. Custer, it seems, is losing appeal. The parks service even took his name off the battlefield.

And why?

Like that slots gambler in Vegas, better PR.

Pacific Fishing Editor Don McManman has a checkered career covering newspapering, some commercial fishing, sawmills, and, of course, grave-digging.