Finegrain,

1. I don't use circle hooks for salmon, just for halibut. I'm not sure how they'd work for salmon, but I'll have to ask around, if anyone here has used them for salmon, let me know.

2. I have not netted many fish this year, even the ones we've kept. I have two of the "hook-stick" things on my boat, one for each side (they also come in handy for grabbing the downrigger clips). We bring the fish alongside the boat, look for a fin, and then release it with the stick if we need to... we never touch the fish.

I will say, however, that we do lose a lot of fish at the side of the boat, especially coho, seem to thrash and roll and throw the hook. Coho seem to be especially bad at hooking themselves through the mouth and then the eye or such, because they roll so much. I find that if I use flashers, it gets worse, and they roll and get the line wrapped around their head, too.

3. I use pretty sturdy line, either 25lb or 30lb leaders on all my spoons, if the fishing is slow, I'll try flashers and hootchies, on the hootchies I use 60lb test.

The only reason I've heard for the WDFW opening in Area 5 is that Chris Mohr (spelling?) out in Sekiu (Van Riper's?) went to all the North of Falcon meetings and lobbyed hard for an opening... same with Area 7, I forget the name of the person that lobbied, but there are a lot of rich, influential people that live in the San Juans that like to fish.

I agree with you on the 1 rockfish rule, that's just dumb. If they want to leave it as 1 rockfish, it should be the first and only rockfish you catch... there's got to be practically a 100% mortality rate on them when you're fishing deep water.

Andy, I agree with you, too. If someone is that worried about wild fish, they should stop fishing, or fish with super specific gear.

If the state is going to open some areas but require us to release certain fish, then we desperately need a well-thought-out education program to show people how to handle and release these fish. We also need concrete studies on what methods produce the lowest mortality rates.

-N.