Has anyone thought about the flip side of this coin? What if mortality rates are 50% or even 80% in Salt water for fresh fish? Is this information going to get us more fishing or less? What if the numbers are used to close all salt water fishing, period anywhere there is a protected or selective fishery? Chinook are C&R only and WIld Coho are in the Humptulips as well as other rivers. Wild Chinook are C&R in some areas that mark their Chinook. Is getting to keep wild Coho and not release them worth possibly losing 2 months of fishing or even worse, having a slot fishery of 3 weeks inbetween Chinook and Wild Coho? There is an awesome late Coho fishery here but there is a lot of native fish then.

I don't know the real mortality rates but I hope that using these numbers doesn't get us just the opposite of what we think they will. I fish primarily in tidal water so losing 2 months to fish would really suck.