Has anyone thought about the flip side of this coin? What if mortality rates are 50% or even 80% in Salt water for fresh fish? Is this information going to get us more fishing or less? What if the numbers are used to close all salt water fishing, period anywhere there is a protected or selective fishery? Chinook are C&R only and WIld Coho are in the Humptulips as well as other rivers. Wild Chinook are C&R in some areas that mark their Chinook. Is getting to keep wild Coho and not release them worth possibly losing 2 months of fishing or even worse, having a slot fishery of 3 weeks inbetween Chinook and Wild Coho? There is an awesome late Coho fishery here but there is a lot of native fish then.

I don't know the real mortality rates but I hope that using these numbers doesn't get us just the opposite of what we think they will. I fish primarily in tidal water so losing 2 months to fish would really suck.

Not to start a bitching session but................

There are several places in GH and the Chehalis fished that you will catch Coho but mostly Chinook. Simply there are a bunch of folks ( and several on this bloody BB ) that go out and C&R Chinook heavily and pick through Coho even in clipped only. Couple or three guides make a real thing out of of it.

So to look at this like oh I don't catch Chinook is, your a lousy fisher, one hell of a sportsman, or just plain unlucky. After that the sport induced mortality on Chinook is in all likelyhood as great or greater than tribal.

This is a fact of life folks so the holier than thou sportie thing needs to be shed. In harvest and NOF everyone on the Harbor team knew full well the impacts that the seasons would bring. When in doubt Doc brought the numbers front and center so ignorance was not allowable. It is the system and all went for the sportie share and frankly I think they did as good as job as I have seen.

But don't try this oh me oh my I did not know I killed a fish releasing it. You have to have had your head up your --- your entire life to think that. It is about harvest and it was and is about impacts and getting the sports share. Plain and simple but if your conscience says I can not harm a unhealthy fish stock ............. stay home. It can not be done. Accept the responsibility for your actions and move on.

It is what it is.

Now that is some straight up stuff that is hard to argue. I like the season we got, no doubt about it. Won't complain about it for sure.

I know I have killed fish from fighting them and releasing them, if I made it sound otherwise I was wrong. I do my best, but I am not perfect. 2 wild Coho were released by me on the Hump last year that I am certain died. Never netted, I revived them and swam out of my hands but went belly up shortly after. But when someone tells me that likely 2:3 if not all 3 fish I caught and released last year that I assumed lived likely died I have to question it. I have killed my share without intent, is part of the sport and part as you say, it is what it is.

As for being able to catch Chinook................

I do agree that sport mortality could be and in a lot of casses is higher than gill netting, have seen it first hand.

I have been told what happens at the NOF meetings and and it is always a fight to get a share. Blaming or thanking mortality rates for it is simply nonsense without fact to back it. Sounds like Doc has his facts and knows his stuff, glad he is on our side.

Just for clarity, the Hump will be mark selective for coho.

There are VERY few wild coho left in this river, and it is once again expected to fall short of goal.

The encounter rate for hatchery fish is expected to be nearly 4H:1W..... exactly the opposite from that expected for the Chehalis system.

Here, mark-selective is the way to conserve wild coho.

Why not just simply close estuary fishing all together? If we are all huffed up about the sanctity of wild fish populations and so hyper-consciencious about incidental take, with kill percentages like what are being presented as the norm......WTF are we doing fishing at all in these sensitive waters??
Feel free to rationalize away.

Slab Happy.......Bite your tongue.....Scroll back and re-read "Rivrguy's comments"......probably very close to "telling it like it is"....

I know....

Slab,

It makes sense to have estuary fishing when there are harvestable numbers of fish entering the estuary. That is the expected case regarding wild and hatchery coho in Gray's Harbor bound for the Chehalish River. A good run of wild coho is forecast, not as large as last year's, but a good enough run to allow fishing.

Sg