Now, if you had taken those those fish from the tangle net, revived them in a box, and released them live would they then be counted as a "live" release for (mis) management purposes?

Seriously, if the fish swims away is it considered a successful release?

Not sure how big the tubes are, but I know if I just sprinted a 400m race (assuming I actually finished it and didn't blow an achilles) I'd want something larger than a snug coffin to warm down, stretch out, and circulate all the lactate out of my spent muscles. That might contribute to the broodstock model mortality, but then again, I'm outside my area of expertise. INteresting discussion though.

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I've always wondered what the poaching kill rate was once C&R is removed from a river.

As long as they have enough room to fully function the gills, it should work. Plus, probably, cool water.

There is probably a whole lot that we don't know about how a fish recovers from stress. Obviously, the fish must have some coping mechanisms as they have to escape seals and such, making explosive moves.

All too often we try to extrapolate results. At least partly because we don't want to spend the money to repeat studies. We know, for example, that C&R works really well on resident trout. It also seems to work pretty well on anadromous cutthroat. Among the big differences is that the trout fisheries give the fish a break over winter when they can recover and they are not ripe or even maturing when C&R'd. The Cutties might be caught as they ripen but since they are actively feeding all through the process maybe they can recover. Or, we simply don't C&R a significant number of the population.

Tubes were 10 in PVC ventilated with 1 to 1 1/2 holes perforating the entire tube caps both ends. The move in the boat was in a portable tank out of water time 10 to 20 seconds. Net pen was brought to shore so it was a 100 ft move from net pen to tanker truck. The entire work area was lit up by halogen flood lights. If experienced other than the capture the fish were kept in ideal conditions. The process worked well for years in all efforts with this exception, Staging & high stress environment you will loose fish with hens taking the biggest hit.

Think of it this way. Fish start transition in the bay from salt to fresh but where they pull up and stage waiting for eggs to develop and optimum spawning conditions to materialize differs greatly. It could be low in the river or much further right to the spawning reach. Never the same each year and not all do the same thing which means the only way to reduce the hen mortality is get as close to the spawning area as possible.

As was noted by the Chahalis folks, there was a portion of Grays Harbor where released fish simply died. Quantified by ADFG with coho wherein 100% of the coho C&R'd in rec fishery in an estuary became crab food.

It's getting really old that there is all sorts of information on problems that managers seem to want to avoid admitting because they make conflicts or the require actual piloting of the plane rather than autopilot.

Interesting to know, thanks for that info.

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It was bad (scary bad, really) but not 100% bad. Tidewater coho suffered a 69% release mortality with sport gear on the Little Su...

http://www.akleg.gov/basis/get_documents.asp?session=28&docid=1949

Coho are BAR NONE the worst C&R salmonid in tidewater. ADFG research studies on coho captured by fish wheel traps showed a 47% handling mortality.... WITHOUT the added risk of a hooking wound and the physiologic stress of being exhausted by rod/reel.

If this is true, how bad must it be in the Marine areas where the C&R is many times greater?????? Marine area fishery is much longer, has the charter fleet, and a large sports fleet.... just asking !!!!!!

Surprisingly there’s been no comparison to the Oregon winter steelhead fisheries. If I’m not mistaken there is still a retention reg on the south coast, fairly robust hatchery programs up and down the coast.
With rivers like the Queets/Hoh/Quilliute drainages being every bit if not more pristine as our Oregon neighbors coastal drainages, yet we continue to struggle to get spawners on the gravel. What could the problem actually be? Could it be......SATAN!
Seems bizzare to me that this conversation has drifted off into the virtues of C&R and have ignored the most obvious culprit. One strategically placed net at the right time can decimate a push of fish.

In discussions with some OR bios they said that, at least in some of the more southern streams, the base geology is very different and provides significantly more nutrients into the water. This leads to more productivity.

WA base geology is nutrient poor. Rather than erosion providing the nutrients at some level, we need spawning salmon. Oops, can't do that.

This base geology thing shows up in trout fisheries where, like in the Idaho batholith, fish need to be 5-6 years old to mature while the same species may take 3-4 in a productive (limestone) stream.

Ah I would urge you to ask for the preseason forecast model for the stream you think that is the case on. It has a RR tab ( run reconstruction ) and will list the harvest impacts by user. What they are differs from stream to stream but seldom are what one would think and not having the N Coast one I will not venture a guess. I do however have the Chehalis Basin and it breaks like this for 2015 - 16 which is the last year I have.

QIN W 2164 H 4179 = 6430

NT share ( Chehalis tribal is part of NT share )
Che W 476 H 743 = 1219
Sport 9142 ( only 142 W with C&R )
Total 10361

As you see the NT share outpaces the QIN then you must add the Summerrun Steelies in ( I do not have that number ) and the in balance gets much much worse. Also it is the aggravate of the Hump and Chehalis that the QIN have to work to and the imbalance gets worse again. I am not a fan of nets but frankly the QIN do not have the greatest impact on harvest as a total, NOR's yes. Which brings the thing back around to why C&R was being discussed. I guess this is rude time. If you think any tribe accepts the C&R % that WDF&W uses you would be wrong. If you think C&R rates used by WDF&W are correct one should buy better drugs, weed is legal you know.

So the fish suffer because we ( I am part of we ) refuse to accept that you cannot have the hordes of urban based folks pouring into the rural areas for the outdoor experience and have the fish not suffer. Yup the tribes fishing methods are problematic but they pale hugely when compared to the NT side of things with anything that has selective fishing in the mix be it Commercial or Rec.

I was frustrated with the community of Forks in 2003, for the same reasons many here decry. Now that the no kill rule is in effect, we are learning what those folks in Forks already knew: any allotment the sport side relinquished would get sucked up by the neighboring treaty tribes on the basis of "foregone opportunity." That is happening. The Quileute Tribe is scheduling additional gillnet days to scoop up what we have (only in theory) given up.

I'm not sure it makes any difference how much anyone harvests, as regards steelhead. They seem doomed to extinction unless every stakeholder makes the painful sacrifices it would take to recover them, an no stakeholder has a good track record of making necessary sacrifices to help fish.

Their problems are clearly different from what salmon face, but like Carcassman, I believe MSH salmon management has gradually reduced stream nutrient levels to the point where the steelhead we've got are all the rivers can support.

I still say no kill was the right decision, but it's going to take a lot more to save wild steelhead.

Years ago as I was pounding away on the decline of a single species and a rather smart lady destroyed my day. Seems she took the time to explain to me that streams that have Chinook, Coho, Chum, and Steelhead are interlocked with one being key. You see if Coho crash we stagger on but if you blow Chum it will be followed by Coho followed by with Steelhead just diving in the dumpster. Thing about it is Steelhead are a taker in the natural order. They only take from the watershed while Chum and Chinook carcasses put more into the natural order with the very short fresh water cycle and basically are a watershed fertilizer. Coho can cover their take in a watershed but it is limited by our desire to harvest them. Steelhead can not and will not prosper until the natural balance is restored and not planting twigs or broodstocking to boost numbers but by restoring the nutrient level which requires that salmon harvest be drastically reduced.

I simply have never been able to understand why folks do not get the fact that humans messed up the natural order to be sure but on the coast habitat has stabilized. Simply put we have a harvest problem that many think we can " restore " our way out of and frankly is a load of BS of epic proportions. Healthy Steelhead populations require that we kill less salmon as they are all interlocked in the ability to survive and prosper.

I'd like to meet her.

Stream productivity is the key and in such nutrient poor systems as WA that is salmon delivered. Not only that, but the more salmon you put in the stream the cleaner the gravel is after having all that excess sediment dumped in. Less sediment, more fry per redd. Rather than the death spiral we see we could have a growth spiral where each addition piggybacks on the previous and gets us more.

Ah good point, we all know that Portlandia only targets the hatchery components of the Wilson. When was the last time you floated the Chetco during prime conditions on a holiday weekend. Not drinking the koolaid man.
Oregon river got more bugs. Nets got nothing to do with it.

Gotta understand that dead fish don't spawn and it really doesn't matter how they die. Dead is dead. You can argue the accuracy of reporting but that sword has two very sharp edges. The number of dead fish is controlled by the management objectives. Quite possibly OR believes that more fish should spawn than WA does.

When I started out, the steelhead minimum escapement goal, as stated to me by the head of the fish program in WDG, was a pair of fish per mile of creek. That means, like for S Prairie Creek, we need about 30 steelhead to adequately seed it. While that may have changed, most managers still hold to a concept that anything above MSY (which is fairly low versus the run size or habitat capacity) is not only wasted but leads to catastrophe by excess escapement.

Not doubting that hens are more fragile or even less fertile/fecund after the stress of a C&R encounter with hook/line, but I am more than a bit curious how they were able to quantify the degree/severity that this occurs. What was the study design? Got a link to the paper?

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Anecdotally, whenever I've had a bit of trouble getting a fish to perk up after the battle, I would have to say it's much more likely to be a hen than a buck.

Even the Kenai H&R study on chinook showed a differential mortality.
Small males (under 20-25#) perished at a rate of over 11% due mainly to mortal hooking wounds from the oversized gear. Females perished at a rate of 6.8%. Large males (20-25# or more) had the lowest mortality at 1.9%.

BIG BUCKS were clearly better able to tolerate the H&R encounter. Average for all comers was 7.6%.

The reference was in Fisheries, I'll see if I can find it. They were obviously running a whole stream study as they quantified the smolt number.

You point out the problem, though, with how release studies are conducted. Simple survival, generally over a relatively short time, is the metric. One problem is that you can't both catch a fish and not catch it.

Say a caught hen spawns at RM 50. It spawned, Great. That same fish, is unspawned, would have spawned at RM 60. Or not. But if that is what would have happened had the fish not been caught, then the resulting fry lose 10 miles of habitat to live in. Important if rearing is space limited.

I grew up in Portland and fished the coastal rivers (Wilson, Trask, Nehalem etc.) from 1960 until my job transferred me out in the mid 70's. I still go down there usually once each winter for Steelies, again on the Willy for Springers and sometimes to Tillamook Bay in Sept since I have a friend who owns a cabin at Garibaldi. The OR north coast rivers are still pretty good.

It always seemed to me that the OR north coast rivers produced better than any of the Puget Sound rivers but I never knew why. Their rivers do seem richer, more plant growth, more insect evidence etc.