I live overseas and don't do much salmon and steelhead fishing -- couple of times a year. With Washington more or less under water and my fishing vacation there cancelled, I'm hanging out at my brother's place in Sacramento this week trying to get into some No. Cal. steelhead.

Today I fished the American River right in Sacramento (Goerthe Park). Tough sledding but downriver a few summer runs 1-4lbs were taken on crawlers (no details).

Now onto the reason for the post. A couple of old-timers were lining spawning kings using beads (for buoyancy), 10-15 foot leaders and a half ounce of lead for the 18" of water they were fishing. The retrieve was a drift till the lead hit bottom, then 6" jerks.

First fellow 'fair lined' in the mouth a native hen of 15-16lbs. As this geezer is about 70, I helped him by tailing and unhooking his fish (a treble hook, no less). The hen was reasonably bright (for a spawner) and probably edible. The geezer told me he wanted to keep it. Knowing that lining is legal in California, I handed him the hen as she spewed on the beach a half pint of eggs that should have been going onto her redd (the beat up buck followed her to the shallows). The geezer bonked it and that was that. I felt a little ill.

But wait, there's more. The geezer's friend had had a couple of strokes and was snagging seated in a lawn chair set up bank side. Eventually, he got one too and as the nearly black male was coming in sideways I downed tools and offered to help land this one, too. Well, that poor king was not only snagged while in bed, he had a treble lodged firmly in his vent. Milt was squirting everywhere when I backed out the treble.

I told the two old-timers that this fish was snagged and had to go back. The enfeebled fellow said 'I want to keep it.' I argued that the meat would be useless -- not even huskies would want it. He wouldn't hear of it, so I reluctantly handed him the black buck and watched as he was filleted on the spot. I felt like I was witnessing a murder.

A few minutes later both elderly gentlemen left, no doubt fearing that I'd turn them in if a warden came by.

Does everyone mind their own business over these sorts of incidents, do you insist the fish be returned or do you take the law into your own hands and release someone else's snagged prey?

With these old guys, I didn't have to fear for my safety but with most of the rest of the fisher folk I saw today looking like they had either come from bird hunting (season opened this weekend) or were on their way, I'm not certain I'd want to look down the barrel of a shotgun over a fish.

I was down at the Cowlitz this weekend as I think it was the only place not blown out and a buddy of mine happened to get a nice 9 pound steelie in the tail, after 3 other people congratulated him on such a nice catch, to their complete amazment, we un hooked it and let her go, they all said, "why did you do that, I'd have kept it"...

Snagly: Welcome to Sacramento. I was kind of thinking you've been here before. I was on the American on Sunday. I met up with a couple of salmon on their redds. I moved away. Let nature takes its course.

Snagly-
You should have released BOTH fish and hoped for the best (for the fish). I, like many, was taught to respect my elders in all circumstances but this is beyond the pale. Unless you were to witness these two snacking on Alpo, the moral high ground is the only place to be. No one needs a fish that close to death and spawn. If there is the slightest chance of the fish living it should be released, period. The wife and I release ALL fish that are not destined for dinner the same day, unless fatally hooked. The Cowlitz got back several beautiful cutts on sunday including a VERY nice 20 incher that was tasty looking. Don't know about you, but we fish to fish, not catch, that is the icing on the cake. "some men spend their whole life fishing not knowing that the fish is not what they're after" As to the concern of safety, excercise your constitutional rights and defend yourself as appropriate is the best advice I can give. If someone is such a NANCY BOY that the only way they can keep a fish is at gunpoint, then so be it. I will still sleep at night knowing that I made my mark on his conscience.

wit45cal: That quote hit the nail on the head. Thank-you

I too, witnessed an unbarable act Saturday while fishing with my father. It was a busy day, but aren't they all this time of year. We were fishing a favorite river in Southern Oregon for late Fall Chinook. We were back bouncing bait when a boat behind us started screaming.... they had picked up a double pulling plugs. After watching this blue stickered boat (that's the color of the Oregon Guide stickers this year) for 10 minutes we noticed then landed both fish. Good for them, one was a nice buck, the other a nasty looking hen. We didn't pay much attention... waiting for them to release the nasty looking hen, when we heard shouting. The guide thumped both fish and the other boats exploded. Yelling and crusing, it was alomst, "Funniest Home Video" material... except for the cursing. This was a guide I had never seen, and later found out he was new to the area. Word got out about his catch of the day and he preceeded to receive abuse all day. Good for the FISH, bad for his clients....

The only good thing about keeping the nasty hen is she wasn't spewing eggs... she had already deposited them in her redd. I bet she was TASTY!

I have one rule in my boat. If you wouldn't want your picture posted on the cover of STS with a fish.... release it.

Snagly.. have you received anything in the mail??????

Snagly, you should have kicked the [Bleeeeep!] out of the ole' timers and when finished said "that was about as sporting as snagging spawining salmon"

You know what, it's bad enough that a lot of the time when you get a salmon in the mouth (mainly silvers) while using drift gear, Your line simply caught in their mouth, and when you set the hook, it hits their mouth, thus a legally "snagged" fish... There is NO excuse for, nor reason for bothering a spawning salmon... The only excuse I can actually see, is a true case of having to feed your family, and cannot find anything else.. but even there, one should be able to find alternative methods of getting food...

Tom

Thanks for your replies and stories. I've been giving this a lot of thought the last two days. I admire those of you who release all spawners -- even those caught by others -- but I don't think it is right to unilaterally decide that the regulations are wrong and release even legally taken fish like that hen. Instead, we need the fish and game people to do one of two things: (a) ban leaders longer than 'X' (say, four) feet and (b) make certain streams C & R only after a given date.

I was wrong to let the second fellow keep that buck. I had the fish in my hands and I should have carried him back to the shallows and revived him. He deserved better.

Yesterday, I enjoyed some wonderful guided fishing on the Feather for 1-5 lb hatchery steelies. I had the honor of catching the largest squawfish the guide's ever seen. (This beast now sleeps with the fishes.) I also had the honor of catching a 5 lb native steelhead -- the first one the guide's ever seen. The fishery is 100% C & R (I believe) and is in wonderful shape.

For all of this -- plus the four steelies I managed to land today in the American at the Snag Hole -- I was using a beautiful GL3 STR 1263 (6-12lb line) float rod built for me by TH. The weapon was a single 8 mm Cabela's fluro bead half-milked w/ pink nail polish and toothpicked 1" above a #8 hook dead drifted under a float w/ light weight. With the steelies eating king spawn, this single egg (w/ and without a nymph trailer) did the trick.

I'm really impressed with the quality and quantity of fish (shame about the size but the summer runs are small -- I'm told the winter fish are 6-12lbs) around Sacramento. The regulations do need fine tuning, though as does my willingness to 'get involved' to protect the fish -- native kings in this case.

[This message has been edited by Snagly (edited 11-18-1999).]

Snagly: So you used a float system on the American? I've tried using it with glo bugs...probably when there weren't any fish. I'm glad someone had some luck with the system; I was certain it would work. By the way, where is the Snag Hole?

[This message has been edited by Idono (edited 11-19-1999).]

Idono, I don't know the holes by name, so let me tell you how I got there. Go as far as you can drive into the park, taking the left fork in the road and parking in the circular turnaround. River is on your left 100 feet away. The run begins on the right side and then swings across to the left. The backyards of plush houses are across the river.

The steelies were in two places:

1. 1-2 feet of water behind the spawning kings

2. In the bubble line in the run. (I could only fish the near seam, and even there I wasn't getting a good drift through the tailout even though I had a 10 1/2 foot float rod and was wading aggressively. I'll wager there are good fish in that tailout that seldom if ever see a naturally presented bait or lure. Should be possible to hit them from the other side of the river but I didn't have a map to show me where the public acess point was so I stayed where I was).

Downstream a half mile is the pedestrian bridge and some nice looking water below that. I was late in the day and didn't do much there -- jumped off a half pounder in a side channel on a float and bead combo.

Let me know how you do on the winter fish!