BassBlaster

8K Fish = 66K Dollars

It's just like the olden days!

It’s that time again. The time to award, reward or mental-ward – whatever you want to call it – those folks in the Pacific Northwest who grind out cash year after year by catching and killing northern pikeminnows, formerly called squawfish.

As we’ve said here before, Bonneville Power Administration (our tax $ at work!) provides a bounty on these native fish because they eat baby salmon. Never mind the fact that dams, etc. do far more damage – hey, they’re paying, folks are catching, what’s not to like.

Last year the beeg weener was a guy who raked in an amazing $81K for his catch efforts. Dang! This year the weener reeled in $66K, the rub being that was spread across 8K fish. When’s the last time you caught 8,000 fish in a year?!

Here’s the killer part: The same dude is catching all these fish and making all this coin! Nikolay Zaremskiy of Gresham, Ore. held the first payout record, $58K in 2008. Last year he earned $81K and this year he was tops at $66K. That’s…let’s see…carry the 1 – a little over $200 in 3 years of fishin’. Got to say it again: Dang!

Did I mention it’s only a 6-month season, which means Nikolay caught an average of 1,333 fish/mo this year?! Last year his count was more than 10K….

More from this article:

> David Vasilchuk of Vancouver, Wash. was the No. 2 angler, earning $60,742 for the season that ran May 1-Oct. 16.

> The program pays $4 for the first 100 fish, $5 for 101 through 400 and $8 per fish after 400. As an incentive, some fish are tagged and worth $500 apiece to the lucky angler who catches them.

> About 930 anglers participated this season, catching 155,000 northern pikeminnows. Only 80 reached the $8 per fish level.

> Officials from Bonneville Power Administration, which funds the program, say removing the pikeminnows saves about 4 million young salmon and steelhead from predation.

> Since 1991, more than 3 million pikeminnows have been removed from the Snake and Columbia rivers. The harvested fish are collected and processed into fertilizer and poultry food.

5 Comments

5 Comments

  1. Chad Keogh

    November 15, 2011 at 1:25 pm

    Not a bad way to earn a living. Spend six months “working” on the bounties, then spend the next six months “fun” fishing. I think I’ve just found my retirement plan…

  2. Ryan

    November 15, 2011 at 5:02 pm

    Asian Carp should have a bounty!

    • Tumblebug

      November 16, 2011 at 10:08 am

      Totally agree.

  3. Pete

    November 16, 2011 at 5:54 am

    “(our tax $ at work!)”

    The BPA is self-funded.

    • admin (mostly Jay)

      November 16, 2011 at 7:52 am

      He’s right — as far as we know….

      “While BPA is part of the Department of Energy, it is not tax-supported through government appropriations. Instead, BPA recovers all of its costs through sales of electricity and transmission and repays the U.S. Treasury in full with interest for any money it borrows.”

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