Jerry, You have no idea how comforting that is!!

It comforts me too

Jerry/Eddie
Since we are all steelheaders by definition we are nuts.

In fact since we endless debate the nuances of that passion we call steelheading it is probable that most of us have a short circuit or two in our neurological systems.

Isn't it grand?!

Eddie -
Your mental exercise in estimating the tribal catch of wild steelhead appears to be good enough to define the relative magnitude of tht catch.

As you point out there sports community has an additional impact (resulting in dead fish) on the wild resource from hooking mortality of the released fish. There are about 80,000 steelheaders in Washington and if each of us released 1 wild fish per year and the hooking mortality is 5% that would mean an additional 4,000 dead steelhead. I would not be surprised if the number of wild steelhead released by the readers on this site didn't approached 10,000 fish a year.

Tight lines
Smalma

Smalma, from the range of issues covered in this thread, I think your quest for complexity succeeded. And I agree with the points in your last 2 posts (all off our rockers). I also believe that the WSR debate needs to be put into the context of the full range of issues on the table. As you say, we know how to eliminate fishing impacts, just close all fishing. But there are potentially huge costs to cutting fish-constituents out of the equation, especially given all the political opponents to restoring and protecting habitat, and keeping water in and pollution out of our rivers. If those habitat issues are much larger than the harvest/Cnr impacts, you might make a strong case for keeping people fishing.
So it is about risk assessment, or cost/benefit analysis, whichever you like to call it.

Eddie- I like what you did with those numbers. Thanks for going to the trouble of digging them out and making some sense out of them.

Smalma & NM, thank you for your unbiased assessment on my sanity and your kind words. I would say that 80,000 steelhead caught and released would be an extraordinarly high number. I could see 10 to 20 thousand wild fish released and that does have some impact. My point remains the same - we as a sportsfishing community have an impact on the wild SH. We better be prepared to accept that and act upon it if we want to have any credibility in the discussion.

Eddie you ARE nuts.....But that's ok...

For clarification, I don't believe that sportsmen have absolutely no impact at all, I'm just uncertain as to whether the impact sportsmen have is actually noticeable. First, I would like to know how the department came up with the 5% mortality figure. In the years I've been steelheading, I've never seen a native steelhead released where I questioned whether or not it would survive. I'm not just talking about the fish I personally have caught, but all the ones I have actually seen. None of them were bleeding, none of them were handled roughly, all were released as quickly as possible, etc. I probably haven't seen as many released as the majority of you, but I believe it's safe to say that of all the steelhead I've seen released, there is a 0% mortality factor.

Now, back to impact. Obviously, if even one fish is killed, there's an impact. Whether or not it's actually meaningful is something else. I think we need to distinquish between impact and meaningful impact. Obviously, if only one fish in a river dies, the impact will not be meaningful because even if there are only 100 fish in the river, there will still be enough to spawn and propogate the run. When I say sportsmen don't have an impact, I mean we don't have a meaningful impact. Like I stated before. Remove sportsmen completely out of the picture and the runs will still decline. By my definition, that's not meaningful. Obviously we all have our own definitions though.

Jacob, let's look at it this way.

Totally hypothetical #'s here:

Total run size in our state possible for wild SH - 150,000

Reduction due to habitat damage - 60,000 - new possible run size is 90,000

Reduction due to hydro - 30,000 - new possible run size is 60,000

Reduction due to negative hatchery impact - 20,000 - new possible run size is 40,000

The tribes and sportsmen harvest (including mortality rate on released fish) - 12,000 - new possible run size is 28,000.

Now, the 6,000 that the sportsmen harvest is about 4% of the original maximum carrying capacity. Not terribly meaningful. However, 6,000 of the 28,000 is 21%. Coupled with tribal harvest we reach 42%. Quite meaningful. And clearly not sustainable. Not nearly as meaningful as the cumulative effect of habitat loss, hydro, and negative hatchery impact, but I'm not seeing a great deal done to mitigate those impacts. So, you are right - sport fishers releasing all wild steelhead only delay the inevitable. But maybe that delay will give us the will to tackle the big problems.

I would really appreciate if one of the smart fisheries people would look at the numbers to see if once again my insanity is showing or if the basic tenets are somewhat accurate.

Jacob -
Some of the best hooking mortality informtion comes from wild brood stock collections. Probably the best information comes from Vacouver Island where under the direction of Bob Hooten the survival of fish caught for brood stock purposes was track through spawning. As I recall (don't have the info in front of me) over a number of years they monitored the survival 3,300 fish with mortalities varied from about 3 to 7% depending on the year, river and whether summers or winters. Other brood stock captures while not as large in terms of the number of fish handled have found similar mortalities. Bottom line there is mortality associated with catching the fish. Most of the mortality occurred within 24 hours of capture though some deaths occurred later (typically wihtin 72 hours)

What has been learned is that most mortality is associated with the fish is hooked in what has been determined to be "critical" areas. These are areas where substantial bleeding occurs. Those areas include the gills, eye, back of the tongue and the esophagus. When comparing various fishing methods (bait verus non-bait) the differences in the per cent of fish hooked in a critical area will give you a rough idea of the relative diffrences in potnetial mortalities.

If you wish more detailed information do a search on this site as there has been a number of discuusion that have covered this topic in depth.

You should be thankful that you haven't had to experience the agony of watch a release native from your catching it. Beleive me it leaves a sinking feeling.

Tight lines
Smalma