Originally Posted By: kevin lund
Open to retention of all hatchery salmon and or steelhead all year. ODFW does not want these fish spawning in the wild so why on Earth is there any time that you can't keep a hatchery fish in any river.


WDFW doesn't want them spawning either.

I agree with you, Kev.... my boat policy is that ALL legal hatchery fish MUST die. The only point I would add is that there needs to be legal space on the tag so as not to exceed that daily limit.

I tried to make a case for bonking hatch kings in GH this past year, i.e. those incidentally caught while targeting coho.

The rebuttal I got back (and a legitimate one at that) is that doing so could create an incentive for folks to target and/or continue fishing specifically for that lone hatchery king. That would keep such folks on the water longer, targeting kings and sorting thru a lot of wild ones, and unnecessarily killing a few in the process. By not having that hatch king retention, folks simply catch their legal limit of coho, then exit the fishery for the day. Overall wild chinook impact is thus minimized.

I see the merits of both sides.
_________________________
"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!