It's hard to follow your wishy washy posts fishNphysician. Anyone that follows your posts knows very well where you stand.

So what is it, are you mad about the retention of wild coho or are you upset and the quota reduction?

Behind the scenes?? yea..

My Regs say "RELEASE ALL WILD COHO"

AREA 13

AS always everyone thinks of pointing fingers before the facts are in, mean while the facts are all about catching the reason this is happening is to balance out the sports caught quota's so we don't get all up in arms before the commercials take a wack at them,can you here me now!!!PEACE????

You need to follow a little more closely phishinman, because you obviously missed the gist of everything I have ever published on selective fishing and the merits of C&R.

In any fishery, the basic principle I have always advocated is to conduct fisheries only upon designated target stocks that are capable of tolerating some level of harvest, without harming the health of that stock or the health of other non-target stocks that could potentially be impacted by the fishery. Whatever method is employed in prosecuting that fishery ( net, trap, hook and line), it must meet a basic standard that allows for the live capture and unharmed release of the vast majority of non-target stocks captured by that method.

A gillnet does not meet those criteria. Similarly, the current "selective" ocean fishery for hatchery coho, as currently prosecuted, also fails the test. As I said earlier, current practices by all fishery participants in aggregate probably results in release mortalities of 60-80% across the board for ocean coho. I thank AuntyM's acknowledgment of the special care I personally give to the fish I release, but I too must acknowledge that even with the best of care, a significant number of ocean coho will die after release. Coho are an exceedingly fragile species that is easily stressed, and extremely intolerant of de-sliming and de-scaling in ocean conditions. Far too many of these fish are gut- or gill-hooked, particularly while mooching, that the incidence of mortal bleeders is unacceptable when using the standard tandem salmon/octopus-hook style of rigging that dominates the fishery.

Mark Cedergren and I have been in discussions since last winter to jump start a pilot project to "test drive" circle hooks in the Westport charterboat fleet this year. At my urging, Gamakatsu was kind enough to donate a supply of hooks just for this purpose. However, because of logistics and health concerns, Mark was unable to devote much time to the project. Once the fishery was in full swing, it became apparent that fishing was less than stellar, and we could find no willing captains that would risk trying the unproven circle hooks on paying clients when they were already having such difficulty limiting their boats with salmon. In short, the project never really got off the ground.

WDFW's darling of selective fishing for ocean coho has become so politicized that it is unlikely to disappear. The charters like it because it helps to extend their season. If it were "keep-the-first-two-caught" they would quickly gobble up their allowable impact on wild coho and the season would be closed in just a few days.

What is sad is that WDFW bases the wild coho impact from selective fishing on a release mortality of only 10%. OK, maybe if all the fish were lip hooked, never put in an abrasive net, never touched by human hands, and all were released with a de-hooker without ever removing the fish from the water (valuable guidelines all anglers should strive to emulate). But anyone who has any on-the-water experience with this fishery knows damned well that just ain't the way it goes most of the time.

All too often, it goes more like this:

"Wow, that's a nice one... quick get the net!"

Thrash, thrash, roll, spin, tangle, tangle.

"Damn the hooks are all buggered up in there! Get him aboard."

Lift, thrash, thrash.... de-slime, de-scale in the net.... THUD..... flop, flop.... de-slime, de-scale all over the abrasive boat deck.

"Geez, wouldn't you know it, he's got too many damned fins. Get the pliers.... damned that trailer is in there good.... did you mash that barb?"

Flop, head bang, more slime and scales on the deck

"Damn, now he's bleedin'.... ain't that a shame we gotta throw him back?"

Five minutes later.... belly SMACK as the fish is thrown overboard..... rollover.... belly up.... blood pumping with every stroke of the gill plates

We've all seen it..... WAY too often!

If selective fishing is to become a viable practice, more education needs to happen. Californians mandate the use of circle hooks for mooching to virtually eliminate the incidence of gut- or gill-hooking. Everyone needs to have a de-hooker on board to be able to release wild coho with a "no-touch" technique. If charters must net a fish to release it, they must use a soft knot-free mesh that is much less likely to de-slime and de-scale the fish. There is no need to bring a fish aboard to remove a hook.... ask any rookie who has knocked a fish off, and he'll tell you a landing net is potentially one of the best de-hooking devices ever created!

Until these things come to pass, the current fishery needs to be exposed for what it is.... wanton waste of the very wild coho WDFW is purportedly trying to conserve.

If this August 29 decision is truly based on the realization of that simple truth, then WDFW should be frank enough to disclose it.

FPN....I usually read all your long posts all the way through and find a common "thread" which is a passionate pleading of your cases. The problems I see in this thread are that your contentions are not 100% on target and you tend to belittle or insult those who don't agree with your conclusions.. Good rabble rousing to fire up the troops against WDFW but not necessarily a factual thesis.

The current change in regs allowing harvest of "wild" Coho after August 29th is a trade off. Sports fishers give up 5,000 Chinook from their quota to the trollers. In return the sports fleet including the charters will get part of the commercial quota of Coho. A simple trade off. Mark Cedargreen helped negotiate this deal which certainly helps his constituancy which is the chareter boat fleet. It also helps the rest of the sports fishers who want to harvest a nice ocean Coho and take it home.
As hard as we try we cannot catch the Chinook we are offered before the end of the season sometime in September around the 19th or so. We had the same situation last year. As hard as Steve Ng, Fishnut and I try we cannot get enough Chinook. So we give up something we are demonstrably unable to harvest in return for the opportunity to harvest some of the unclipped Coho that are in such abundance.

Before this weekend when more hatchery Coho were available , the ratio was about 65% wild to 35% clippped at best. If you are so close to Mark he has certainly told you that each passing year since the release of wild coho was mandated brings a higher and higher percentage of wild fish. In fact, Coho hatchery releases has been going down due to the increase in wild stocks. So I'm sure Mark would tell you that at some point the wild stocks can and should be harvested. Not just mortality during CNR but actual retention of wild Coho is overdue. So there is now a debate as to how long wild release needs to continue.

Now to mortality. I think the 80% mortality is riduculous and has no basis in science . That kind of claim is what comes out when passion shifts gears into fanaticism. Sorry but it just doesn't wash. As AuntyM so aptly pointed out, the ocean coho seem more fragile than river coho. I have explored this question after releasing so many large wild Coho as carefully as anyone could possibly do last year. I am still not convinced why so many seemed to float away last year. I have watched carefully and most if not all swim away eventually. This year I have released ocean Coho and none floated at all but all immediately swam away. No double mooching leaders with tiny hooks to land in the gills. Some purists who only mooch probably do kill a larger percentage of Coho to gill hooking. I usually am using a single barbless Gamakatsu and release with the stick without removing any fish from the water. More people are doing this than you give credit for. The WDFW folks have given away thousands of the release sticks and spend alot of time with education. To say they are lame in that dept is , again. off the mark. It is a cheap shot to automatically blame WDFW all the time. It just isn't that black and white.
And the charters I have watched this year seem to leave the net in the water with that 10' handle while they determine whether the fish is wild or clipped. Not one of the charters I watched tossed any fish overboard nor did I see any mishandling. Sure a bunch of mishandling still takes place in all fisheries but peer pressure is slowly working to turn that around.

I , too, have talked to Mark about the circle hooks and if I am not mistaken he is not impressed with the supposed benefits and neither are his charter captains. My guess is that using these with rookies may alienate more customers than they are willing to risk. Not saying it isn't a good idea but maybe not now.

One last thought...It is important to remember that most of us here on this board are not amateurs and probably pay more attention to things like CNR and such...The vast majority out there want to take a fish home...especially those on a charter boat. Those are the folks who have no boat and don't fish much but they sure enjoy the experience. Releasing most of the fish brought to the boat is not what they had in mind when they dropped the $80+ to go out for the day. If you are one who releases most of their fish like me then you have your way of doing things and these other folks have theirs. They are not idiots or rapists of the resource or whatever derrogatory adjective some toss their way. They are just average people who want to catch a fish and take it home to the barbecue.

If we revive a run to health do we continue the emergency measures? that is the debate.

Right on Fishn'Phisic. !!! You're so on point! Unfortunately, not all are born with a brain that thinks logically. Keep up the good work, it matters to so many...even though they don't/won't see the light.

It is my understanding that the ocean Coho fisheries in Washington are selective to protect sensitive Oregon coastal runs of Coho, some of which are close to extinction. My guess is that a relaxing of the rulings put in place to protect those runs has something to do with this. I don't think WDFW would make this decision without regard or council for the protection of those stocks. That would be silly, wouldnt it?
:rolleyes:

Grandpa, I respectfully disagree with some of your assertions. Let's start with mortality. As someone posted earlier, the conscientious C&R guys like you, me, and Steve who strive to take the utmost care of released fish are outnumbered by a factor of at least 5:1 by the guy out there just lookin' for meat..... most of those guys aren't looking for a fin until the fish is in the boat, flopping on the deck. Once that fish is heaved out of the water with its full weight thrashing against abrasive mesh, half the slime and scales are gone. The abrasive boat deck takes care of much of what remains. Those fish are 100% dead even if they swim away with vigor. That magnitude of slime and scale loss virtually guarantees that fish will succumb to overwhelming infection long before it ever sees a spawning bed! Do the math, and weight the average of 5 guys with 100% release mortality and one guy with 10% release mortality.... you will get 85%. If anything, I am conservative with my estimate of 60-80%.

Even if I am wrong in overstating that mortality, do you honestly believe the "real" mortality is closer to WDFW's 10% than it is to my 60%.

And who was belittling who? As I recall, phishinman cast the first stone.... were you expecting me to let that personal attack go without a rebuttal?

I applaud your personal ethics in using one single point barbless hook in yout pursuit of these fish, but again, you are outnumbered by a factor of at least 100:1 in that department. For the overwhelming majority of bait fishers, tandem octopus/salmon hooks are still king out there. And there is still a small but obstinate coalition of guys out there who refuse to pinch their barbs.

I recall in my previous conversations with Mark that the status of Columbia River stocks is the main driving force in setting quotas for the ocean fishery off the WA Coast. Since the habitat for wild Lower Columbia coho has essentially been degraded to the point of no return, that stock is exceedingly unlikely to ever be declared as "recovered". In my mind, that makes it exceedingly unlikely that we will ever have a fishery purposely targeting Lower Columbia wild coho wherever that stock is expected to be present. The other thing that supports that conclusion is that WDFW has so heavily invested itself headlong into the concept of "selective" fishing to maximally utilize all exploitable stocks. Hey it keeps the license-buying public happy while WDFW pats themselves on the back for promoting "responsible" salmon recovery. Hell with the "reduced" sports impact, they can justify more openers for the commercials as well. Everybody wins.... that is, except the fish.

I've always believed that Coho are more susceptible to hooking mortality than Kings for example. Coho almost always roll on the line and once in the net always tangle themselves up horribly. Oregon fishing patrols this summer in the ocean have had a 50% incident rate of citations for fisherman not pinching their barbs. Grandpa, you cite education and improvements with releasing of fish. I don't really see that. I fish in many different locations and everywhere I go, I still see fisherman netting fish and then throwing them back overboard, messing with a fish trying to release it for 5 to 10 minutes at the side of the boat etc. Sure I see some fisherman releasing fish the right way but I see far more doing it the wrong way. Even with barbless hooks it's sometimes difficult to release a fish. And this goes way up when using treble hooks. If I can't immediately remove a hook with a de-hooker, then I just cut the leader close to the mouth. Most lures for trolling bait are pre-tied with trebles. I still say that if the law was you get two fish irregardless of wild or hatchery and your done that he mortality to wild stocks would be less.

Sure there are a tons of folks out there who are uneducated about alot of things, not the least of which would be proper releasing of fish. WDFW has done a good job in getting the word out but it is up to the rest of us to spread the education on how to properly release fish every chance we get. At PSA meetings and clinics we pass out brochures on selective fishing and demonstrate the techniques.

We made littering a crime many years ago but some folks still use the outdoors as their garbage can. We are moving forward with selective fisheries and while we do the general fishing public still wants to take home a fish.

In the time I've spent out on the ocean and in PS a good percentage of fish I've seen released have not been handled “properly”. This is especially true when I have fished aboard charters, but I even see it out fishing for winter blackmouth where someone wants to measure their fish to see if it's legal. Typically these guys are the more experienced fishermen but I can't count how many times I've seen nets fly and a few minutes later a fish gets plopped over the side. Whether it's a hatchery fish, manmade run, whatever, good release practices should always be employed, if not then why have selective fisheries at all? Why not just keep the first two fish caught and go home? Now I can understand how it may be difficult for a charter when you are on a 50' boat and are 6' off the water in big seas but it doesn't make it acceptable. Find a way, figure it out. A lot of these boats have a perfect opportunity to educate 20+ people per day.

Grandpa, I wish I agreed with you that everyone is getting better at CNR but I think you may be looking through some rose colored geriatric glasses.

I do agree with Doc though, I wish the WDFW would state their reasoning for this rule change. When they don't they can expect to get heat from a lot of different angles.

I did not say everyone is getting better at CNR. I said that WDFW is doing a good job of educating people and that other fishing groups are doing so as well. I am also pointing out we have a lot of work to do yet.

I agree that the WDFW is making an effort to educate people and on the whole, the word is spreading. You are right that we still have a lot of work to do.

Am I completely off base to question why any fish needs to be netted in or to be identified as legal? The charters I see net everything, then figure out what to do with it. On the whole I think the charters are in just as good if not a better position than the WDFW to educate people and show them how to properly handle and release fish.

Any response from the powers that be, Kramer?

The reason for the change is simple as I stated a few posts ago...The commercials want to harvest what appears to be a big surplus of Chinook....rmember that the fish out there are "mixed stock" no one specific origin at any one time. Anyway a deal was struck to "trade" the kings for more opportunity to harvest Coho for the sports fishery. By allowing the retention of all Coho the quota is also lowered so the original escapement goals are still met.

I think what should be stressed is that the 60-80% mortality figures being advanced here are not based on any scientific info I have ever seen but appear to be a slightly biased gut feeling.

There has been a similar effort up near Neah Bay to try to get the tribes up there to give up some of their Coho so we can extend sports fishing in the area mostly for Chinook. The whole game of allocations is about realigning the available pie and not making a bigger pie.

By the way the charters need to use a long net to reach their fish and I just this past weekend watched them hold the fish in the water while the fin was located..if wild it was lifted carefully and lowered back into the water . If hatchery no special treatment needed. In my case I use a custom made release stick...we have one on each side of the boat....fish stays in the water and the barbless single hook is easily removed . Some of the Coho still experience stress from a battle but swim away. If we could keep all fish , hatchery or wild, we would still be releasing undersized fish.

Still no response from the WDFW on this. If I do get on I'll post it immediately.

Gramps, I know you stated the reasoning earlier. I just wonder why they don't have a better explanation in their press release that explains what you did? Not that I'm doubting what you stated in your post, but I think they can expect even more controversy when they make decisions without giving reasons.

If their decision was based on some estimated high mortality factor then would it appear that the CNR of these fish all along has been a failure? If they say their decision was to try and even out the pie and share some of the unclipped fish with the sporties in return for a percentage of kings then the sporties may feel duped. After all they have been releasing these fish for years, only to find out that they have been releasing fish that are headed for commercials and legal for them to keep. I don't think sportfisherman as a whole realize that the fish they are releasing are being targeting by commercials.

I'm just spitballing here, I don't know all of the angles but these are a couple that I can think of offhand.

Now I think I'm *****ing just to ***** so I'll be done for now. Where's my coffee...???

Wow! They really have cut the quota for this year. Wasn't it around 70k hatchery coho? Then some numbers were juggled and they came up with the 35k quota? Now down to 10k???

If the ocean conditions are that bad(for survival), shouldn't we lay off the fish rather than hammer them?

There is not a shortage of coho.....cutting the quota is only a measure to take into account the allowing of all fish to be retained if legal sized. Pretty darned simple.The season out in the ocean will be over before you know it.

At least we know what its all about now, thanks Grandpa and all. Gonna be trying again this Sunday, not many left now. Biggest for me this year is a measly 26 pounds. Have to change that soon, or hit the rivers for a big one.

Steve

Don't despair Steve.... if that hawg doesn't come your way in the big blue, maybe we'll get you one on the inside next month. Have managed to get a 40+ to the boat every year since '99.... hoping this year is no exception.