Saddest moment of my 2003 season was a king I caught in Grays Harbor on a #5 Mepps spinner (yeah, we ran out of bait) that came in just pumping clouds of blood. Upon landing the 28-30# buck, I could clearly see where the siwash hook had raked across the base of two gill-rakers (just where they insert behind the tongue) before finally burying inside the corner of the jaw. Tried to revive it for about 10 minutes, but with each passing minute, the fish just got progressively more lifeless. We just left him there and motored away... didn't want to witness the thrashing it would get from the next seal to pass by.

So much for the argument that fish only swallow bait and not arificials!

Correct me if I am wrong, but isnt the US water boundary out to 200 miles?
Since the making of "Seal-bombs" illegal, I have had several over-confident seals/sealions come up to my boat waiting for me to hook, and or release fish. I found that taking a stiff plugging rod and 20# line, a 2oz sand sinker (like a .50 cent piece) and swung like a mother on top of the water works pretty well..... It makes a very LOUD *whack* sound that must be a bit painful on their sensitive ears... They leave and when I see them next they are a couple hundred yards away looking at me like they cannot understand what I just did..... Varmints......

MC

Arklier - Was that a trick question? It sure is misleading.

Read the rules folks. You gotta look before you leap or
you are likely to land in a... well, use your imagination here.

Area 11 - (June 1 - Oct. 31) Open for retention of:
Chinook - min size 22".
Other SALMON species - no min. size.
Daily limit 2 (combined).
(no mention of wild fish release here)

I'm in the 17% who had the sense to invite that nate home for dinner.
I guess the rest of you just felt that the sea lion needed a free meal.

Okay, at the risk of opening up old wounds, can someone please tell me the difference between a wild steelhead and a wild salmon when it comes to the reasons for release? I recognize that the salmon can not come back to spawn again, however, isn't the genetic cargo that the wild salmon carries just as valuable as the steelheads? In this state, up until the Dept. of Fishing and the Dept. of Game were unified, the salmon was considered a food fish, steelhead were a game fish. In my mind, we still operate under that split and I believe the next phase in our (sports fishermen) development as stewards of the resource is to apply all of the good reasons for Wild Steelhead Release to Wild Salmon. I'm off to Cabo for a few days, may not be able to see or respond, but this is an important issue in my book. What are your thoughts?

Id actually bonk the fricken seal then release the fish