That would make a great Youtube video.

Oh, and the WFC is now front and center on this.....as recaptured AS are compared to the desired hatchery Chinook. WFC giving positive strokes to hatchery fish?? Really?

Anything to get rid of the commercial AS operations is good. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Saw a few pics of them being caught at Sekiu.

Joe

Sorry, that would be a "friend" whose slime you could never rid yourself of.

While I dont agree with all of WFC's past actions, Im 100% behind their goal of stopping the current aquaculture (filed suit today) and future expansion of aquaculture in Puget sound. The media has explained that Cooke plans to expand to Ediz Hook, but that is only one of a dozen or so sites that they wish to develop. Cooke been lobbying hard in Oly the last several months....and WFC is the only group leading the charge to stop them.
We dont need a repeat of the BC fish farm issues here in Puget sound.

I'm off to bouy 10 for four days to chase some real fish, have fun and for the love of god dont eat any of those pieces of trash!

Talking about the Columbia R.,

It is interesting how negative press varies between comparing the Columbia R. holding net pens that benefit sport, Tribal and Cowboy commercials to the big bad commercial farm for profit in direct competition with commercial fishing industry.

Both net pen operations are regulated by the same strict standards due to food and defecate waste and medical treatment etc.… ----but it seems like only the net pens that don’t benefit the commercial fishing industry are the devils work.

I was up there yesterday afternoon. There are a metric sh!tton of fish along the shoreline around Cypress. We anchored in 20 FOW just inside the pens. Took a while to figure what they'd bite on but a traditional Dick Nite river setup did the trick. There were several native boats in there setting gill nets amongst the 100 or so anglers anchored up. We hooked roughly 30 fish, landed and killed 10.

PS They fight HARD. Nice aerial displays also.

We anchored up behind pens with all the rest around 11 and after many ratsnests on Bantam 50 with 30yo line and a friend that's never cast one, we bailed to troll for chinook. I brought the 9 wt, but the crowd was a bit thick for flinging flies. We went across channel to Indian Village(Guemes). At south end in shallow bay saw 5-6 boats anchored and splashing all around. Think every boat had one on. Bite was red hot for hour or two...lost track of fish hooked/killed 6. Floored by how powerful and how hard they hit. Right about when I was gonna pull out the 9 wt, bite died. Full of pellets,not a baitfish in theyre bellies,egg sacks the size of a dime. Had a blast

Like speyguy said... nothing in the bellies and tiny immature gonads.

Maturity is not just, or even primarily, a size thing. It is an age thing. Most agriculture programs try to get the product as large as they can as fast as they can. Having them mature diverts energy from salable flesh to gonads, types, etc. That is why they are looking at ways to modify and/or sterilize the production fish so that they will be the finny equivalent of Cornish Cross.

That is exactly what I was thinking when they announced this fishery.

Sure seen a lot of pictures of them dead on boat decks lately.

As was expected, the nets are having a free-for-all up there. Bellingham channel seems to be wide open to netting. There are set-net gill nets strung all over the beach from Indian Village south to about 2/3 of the way down Guemes, and secret harbor is a gill net mecca. Gill netters were setting nets right in between sport boats on anchor, I even heard of one collision between the two user groups. Also a large round haul seine boat pulled up and anchored in secret harbor, my guess is they will be round hauling all night long after the sport-o's have cleared out.

From what I can gather the sport fishing by-catch is next to 0. The target technique and locations are not conducive to catching anything other than the stray atlantic salmon. I am very disturbed and concerned to think of all of the bycatch that is hitting gillnets all throughout Bham Channel, especially knowing that it is going to go 100% unreported. WDFW had a strong presence with two large boats out, but they were all just standing on the decks and taking picutes of the madness.

Most of the fish at this time in Secret Harbor have moved on, or been killed, my guess is primarily by the netters overnight.... the majority of the remaining "school" up in the area seems to be up off of Guemes now.

That was my first thought when I heard the netters were out doing their public service of scooping up all those Atlantics.

I can just see them. Whoops darn it keep catching these peaking Kings and Coho oh well got to pay for my gas.

It's too much to hope WDFW is on top of this.

Went out yesterday with 3 flyfishers + casting gear as I was really pumped to hook up on the 9wt. More boats/more jumpers, did not see a fish caught on a rod/checker saw 0 at 5:30pm. 1 jumper hit the boat and we saw a fish swim right at the pink clouser near surface and went right by it. I threw the same pink hoochie/spoon that was hot a few days ago, nothing. Stunning blonde woman next to us, apparently bored with the guys not catching, almost caught one mid air with landing net....Highlight of the day. They just took the day off biting. Went across to pens and saw lots of boats,no jumpers(3 ish?). If gillnetters/seiners are out there day/night, eventually samish fish are gonna be caught. Not sure if anyone noticed in the early pic(seattle times) of seine boat....guy in fish hold had a lot of samish hatchery kings at his feet. Go get em...Tom

Interesting stuff...

http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/salmon/atlantic_catch_map.php

They are all over area 9 right now... hopefully wdfw will give us a day to take them out

I believe I lost one trolling the beach South of ayock. Hit a gibbs, 33207- hans spoon @ 15ft on the 'rigger.