No doubt about it... selective all the way. BUT with one caveat:

Better handling practices. Circle hooks to minimize the risk of gut- or gill-hooking natives. No netting natives. Long de-hooker as described by AK Kings.

Without these measures, selective fishing for salmon in the ocean is a total joke.

One Westport trip, our charterboat put over 100 fish in the boat to put a limit of 40 hatchery silvers in the box. A conservative estimate on the release mortality on those wild fish was 80%-plus. Many were pumping clouds of blood as they were being fought. Most lost over half their slime and scales before release. Some may have swum off with apparent vigor, but because of overwhelming infection down the road, damned few of them would survive to see river gravel to spawn. That's the sad reality of what I have witnessed time and again. With that kind of mortality, fewer wild fish would have perished had the boat just kept the first two caught regardless of fin status.
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"Let every angler who loves to fish think what it would mean to him to find the fish were gone." (Zane Grey)

"If you don't kill them, they will spawn." (Carcassman)


The Keen Eye MD
Long Live the Kings!