Quote:
Originally posted by Sparkey:

Another suggestion...a bait ban in the summer??...How often do countless numbers of wild steelhead smolts and juvenilles inhale a gob of eggs?...and how often do those fish not swim away healthy??...very often!!


This can not only be done with a bait ban in the summer but with a barbless hook restriction as well...if you find the necassity to fish bait, the least you can do is debard the hooks...we all know barbless hooks reduce mortality in trout (which are wild steelhead juvenilles are more or less).
bait ban? barbless hooks?

First off I have hooked more juvenlles on spinners and spoons.

Sure the little guys peck the crap out of my eggs but I dont set the hook on them and rarely hook them.


Second I have still to see a study on mortality of fish caught and released on barbed hooks verses barbless hooks!

I have killed just as many if not more fish on barbless hooks.

Just because a fish swims away does not mean it will survive!

If you hook a fish in the tongue gill or through the top of its head its a dead fish, barbed or barbless.

Fish hooked in the upper maxilla lower maxilla or the side of there mouth will live regardless of barbed or de barbed hooks used. but die if they are mis-handled.

I dont know if there is a tribal fishery on the sky but if there is maybe that could be adding to no fish in the upper river? If the river was closed do you think they would stop. I am not saying that its all the indians fault but its kind of tough for fish to make it through mazes!

thats if there is a tribal fishery there I dont know.