It's official.... if it bites, it dies! All salmon are fair game effective Aug 29... including wild coho!

WDFW Westport salmon announcement

What are these clowns thinking? They are supposedly concerned about the lack of hatchery coho off Westport, enough to reduce the quota from 35,000 hatchery fish down to 10,000. How is allowing the retention of wild coho even remotely related to that harvest reduction? That's like saying blood is red because lead doesn't float. Can someone in-the-know tell the rest of us what the real motive is for this apparently non-sensical decision?

Or is it that the total coho quota (hatchery plus wild) is being reduced to 10,000. In that case, this change in limits is nothing but a wolf in sheep's clothing. By allowing the retention of wild coho (recall that most guys are sorting thru 10-15 wild coho to get a limit of hatchery fish), the only thing that's going to happen is that the quota will be met in just a few days, and the whole fishery will be shut down.

Yeah, you've got that right FNP, I just don't get it, how can one day these fish are endangered (in danger) and the next....kill them all. Could the Charters have something to do with this? Hope the season lasts, because I am still looking for the big one.
Actually this weekend at Westport, the silvers were thick and most of the ones we caught were marked. The biggest King on my boat was 20 pounds, but my buddy on the Relentless got one 38 pounds. Fishing was quite good in the afternoon and I was hard pressed to quit at 5:30 but had the drive home to contend with and had a couple guys with me that had that, "are we down to the last herring yet" look.
I'll be back next Sunday, weather permitting. Looks like you did okay on the bay too.

Steve

I would imagine the charters have something to do with it. $$$$

I with Robyns it's always about the money

Who at the WDFW are we supposed to contact for an explanation on something like this? If catch rates are low maybe at first glance lowering the quota isn't a bad idea, but I doubt it is based on good science. My opinion is that results to date are more driven by run timing and what the vast majority of people (charters) are targeting. But to open it up for wild coho seems idiotic.

My bet is that $$ rules this one.

I think that they figured the overall impact to wild fish would be reduced by reducing the quota and allowing people to keep anything. If they had kept the quota the same, it would have made no sense.

The logic would be... instead of 3 guys fishing during a day and catching 30 wild fish and killing 10 of them because of incidental mortality before they got their 6 hatchery fish, WDFW is allowing people to keep the first six, and maybe they will only kill 5 wild fish. Maybe???

I think the whole catch and release of wild coho is a debacle. I think they should've set the quota's and then said you get one or tow coho a day either wild or hatchery and your done. I would bet that as many or more wild coho have been killed from catch and release as would've been killed by keeping them. I have watched the vast majority of fishermen on the ocean and seen way too many floaters after the fish is released. And what about the charter boats. They bring the fish in the boat and then release it. I know a lot of people might disagree with this line of thinking since most of you here probably to know how to properly release a fish. But your outnumbered five to one when it comes to ocean and sound fishing.

Are they endangered or aren't they. When I was out at Westport it seemed to me that the hatchery fish were the endangered ones.

I was so excited to release 9 wild fish when we were there this year so that my wife and I could come home with 1 hatchery fish between the two of us.

Sure makes you wonder.

love2fish & Aunty

That is a very interesting perspective on it and may be justify WDFW decision

Thats right Aunty! The entire cnr thing preached by fishNphysician and the type is old. FAR more wild coho are being killed by this cnr rule than will die after its opened up. I've been on these charters and have seen how many fish are being killed and thrown back dead.

Sorry fishNphysician but you need a reality check!!

Makes sense to me. I wonder how that will affect us in the Sound. If that is their reasoning, then don't you think that it would apply throughout the state?

Fishing in rivers and fishing off a charter in the ocean are two different things... I think that telling fishNphysician he needs a reality check is way off base. I have also been out on charters for silvers ( some of the greatest puke fests of my life ) and had a hard time watching wild fish getting treated pretty bad before being thrown back... In light of this the rule makes sense to me.

However, this has nothing to do with fish in rivers... thats a whole different issue... as in, if thats the rule in the ocean then it should be statewide... I fully expect the Plunker types to somehow try and tie this into WSR

I guess I shouldn't have said statewide. What I was refering to was not the rivers, but actually puget sound. I don't see that as a different issue. If I CNR a wild silver off Possession doesn't that have just as much chance to die as if I CNR a wild silver in the ocean? Wouldn't you say probably the same amount of danger to that fish.

I'm pretty sure everyone is aware that Puget Sound, excluding area 13, is open for retention of "wild"(not marked) coho salmon. If not, now you do.

Maybe you need a reality check also! As you said it is different issues, maybe you should let your pal fishNphysician in on that news. Your the one trying to tie them together!

Okay, thanks for helping me pull my head out of ..... Well, anyway, it was dark in there.

I just e-mailed the WDFW to see what their explanation of thie rule change is. I'll post their response if I get one.

Appreciate that thoughtful post phishinman, but it is you who are way off base. I have not posted anything recently on my views about C&R coho on this or any other board, so how the **** do you know what my views are? Unless you have some magical ESP powers to read what is in my head, I suggest you keep your mean-spirited presumptious comments within your own narrow mind.

For the record, I have been trying very hard to work "behind the scenes" with the Westport Charterboat Association's director to help reduce the obscene release mortality on wild coho. By my own observations on a charter, I estimate the C&R mortality on those fish is at least 80%. On one trip in 2001, the boat had to sort thru well over 100 coho to put 40 clipped ones in the box. It doesn't take rocket science to figure out that far fewer wild coho would have perished had we just gone with a "keep the first two caught" fishery.

My purpose for starting this thread was not to advocate for a selective coho fishery, but instead to expose the hypocrisy of fish mangagers. If they are indeed making this move in the name of saving wild fish because "catch-the-first-two" saves more wild fish, then they ought to say that in their press release. The truth is they won't do that, and can't do that, because it would expose the flawed management of the "selective" fishery for the past 5 or 6 years to "save" wild coho. If you read the entire press release, you will see that the other major ports are still subject to wild coho release. That tells me saving wild coho is NOT the official rationale behind the decision.

We as a group must demand from WDFW the true rationale behind this idiotic ruling. Honestly, I don't know how these guys sleep at night.

For two years now I've stated this very argument about the releasing of non-clipped Kings in the strait and that it seemed better for the fish to just have a Neah Bay type, one fish limit, reg but everyone poo poos it. Westport Coho, however, is a much more important matter.