Dave,

Wild LCR coho are ESA listed. The hatchery coho are not. The operable hypothesis is that releasing wild coho results in higher survival overall than keeping the first two coho caught. Whether it works out depends on the ratio of wild to hatchery coho in the population being fished. Eyefish did the math for this year's coho return to Gray's Harbor, and based on the wild to hatchery ratio of the respective runs, it makes more sense to have anglers retain the first two coho caught, which is the regulation adopted by WDFW. In Gray's Harbor, the wild run is expected to be pretty good. In the LCR, the wild run is invariably small in contrast to the hatchery run. One of the difficulties is that a lot of CR hatchery coho continue to be unmarked, last I heard, so it looks like wild coho are over-represented in the total coho population.

One thing we can be sure of is that putting a coho in the fish box will always have a lower survival rate than releasing them.

Sg