Salama

I just got back from Montana.. sorry about the delay in responding.

regarding hooking mortality being primarily a fly fisherman fishing on the swing nearly every fish i hook is hooked in the corner of the jaw, thoes that aren't are in the tip of the nose.
I think i have low mortality because mortality occurred in the BC studies when the fish was injured do to how it was hooked. Not from exhaustion or stress.

regarding smolts. the rivers i fish are primarily closed during smolt migration and i use methods to avoid them as best i can. Also we have so few wild fish that I haven't caught a wild juvenile in years.

Overharvest leads to what we have hear in south west. our best rivers get maybe 3-4 hundred fish a year in an extremely good year!!! For instance most years the washougal gets 200 or less wild summer runs. up until the 1960's it had 1500 every year and that number just from index pool counts, a more realistic number is 2,000-3,500.

The Kalama is the healthiest river down here getting returns around 400.

I fear the day when the Sol Duc returns 150 wild winter runs and if we keep harvesting them that IS exactly what WILL happen. That is exactly what happened here!