Regarding the better in river Skagit king fishing during the 1950s and 60s. Salmo is correct in that those were there because they were not being caught by another user group. If you will recall the biggest chunk of the harvest is currently in Canadian waters - in the 1950s and 60s that effort - both the troll effort as well as the sport fleet was much smaller thus moer fish got back to our waters.

Cupo -
I can understand your comments but consider for a momment. Many have said that despite runs that at times exceed 20,000 wild steelhead even the Quillayute can not support harvest of steelhead. The wild chinook summer/fall forecasts for 2004 (see WDFW web page - fishing - forecasts under North of Falcon) for the Quillayute and the Hoh were 6,491 and 4,240 respectively. The Hoh spring forecast was 1,450. For wild coho in 2004 the forecasts were 21,212 and 8,100 respectively.

Many of the same adrent wild steelhead release supportors seem to have no problem with bonking wild salmon for those two systems. It is also good to remember that unlikely most steelhead fisheries most of our wild salmon fishing impacts occur in mix stock areas - like the ocean. If the argument is that small run sizes make the resource fragile as you seem to indicate in your Skagit coho comments then how can an angler concern about wild salmonid resources fish for and even consider keeping an unclipped (wild) chinook or coho in the Quillayute, Hoh or the ocean?

The wild chinook run in those two systems are smaller than the recent wild steelhead runs in the Skagit and the Hoh wild coho run isn't much larger.

I'm sorry but those wild steelhead release at all cost supportors that turn around and kill wild chinook or coho salmon in the above situations or condone the taking of those fish lose their credibility as a wild fish advocates with me!

I realize that the above comment is heresy but so be it.

Tight lines
S malma

SMalma (or Salmo),

In consideration of the numbers of wild Coho returning to the Skagit this year, do you feel it is wrong for us to take wild Coho here?

The WDFW set a limit of 3 fish (wild or hatchery)..and that tells me they (WDFW) feel this run is strong and healthy and could support that harvest.

Not arguing at all, but you guys are the experts with this stuff and your opinion does matter..

Figuring out what to catch, what is "keepbable", and where, seems to be a bunch of "Black Magic" to me.

Mike

Smalma, you have a good point and I agree with you. With the exception of a couple of attempts at coho from the beach, I don't really fish the salt. When I see pics of unclipped kings from the coast I wonder where those fish were headed.

Mike -
In regards to keeping some Skagit wild coho or any other wild salmonids for that matter my approach has been to balance my desire for fresh fish with the health of the resource I'm fishing on and the value of individual fish in the population to the fishing experience. Fish (this discussion should apply to more than just salmon) are both a healthy and tasty food source. I also believe that the retention of some fish is an important part of the fishing experience.

In practice I harvest wild fish that come from robust populations (recent examples would last year's pinks, this year Lake Washington sockeye, Puget Sound ling Cod, etc). In stocks where there are marked hatchery fish as well as wild fish I try to focus my harvest on those marked fish and only keep unmarked fish that are potentially mortally injuried (assuming it is legal to do so). There is an unmarked coho in my frig right now that will tonight's dinner.

Examples of cases where I feel that individual fish have high value to the fishing expereince and I have opted to release all of the them include wild steelhead, sea-run cutthroat, Dollies, stream resident trout, large bass, etc.
Please note the above is based on my values alone. The more that one fishes on some of these populations the more important it is the release all those caught - reserve if you will you impacts to the hooking mortality and not compound ones impacts by keeping some additional fish. In the examples above I geneally fish often enough and with enough success that my CnR mortality on those fish over the years is likely as high as most angler's harvest of those species. I recognize that and I have opted not to harvest those fish. The alternative to limit my own impacts on the resource would be to fish less. I should not that 99% of the fishing I do is with barbless hooks regardless of the fishery and most of it with flies.

To be fair I should mention that with the last of the kids out of the house (off to college) it doesn't take a lot of fish to satisfiy the wife and my needs.

In short Mike it is up to each of us to develop a fishing ethic that we are comfortable with and that is within the biologically and social limits of the resource that we all enjoy so much.

tight lines
S malma

Can anyone confirm whether or not the kings caught from the Edmonds pier are hatchery origin or not? In the time that I fished it, I was a very amateur fisherman and didn't know my fish very well so I didn't pay attention to the adipose fin region whenever a fish was caught.