Evolution of a Snagger:

Let me take you on a little time trip.

There was a guy who heard that you could catch a lot of chinook at the Samish river. This was interesting because he used to cast for chinook off of the edmonds fishing pier and he might catch 5 or 7 chinook for the year. He always used a single barbless hook, even though trebbles were allowed. This was a long time ago... He used to see so many shakers hooked, he learned how to miss the shakers that mostly hit at the end of a cast, near the surface.

So anyway...after hearing all that he was losing out on, he went up to the Samish river. He brought salmon eggs for bait and lots of gear to fish them properly. For three years he tried this. He caught a few legal fish, but with all the people there he could not use a float without crossing lines. So he used a weight with a leader to the eggs. Most of his fish were snagged in the body. Why?...Well after thinking he figured it out. The fish were not biting the eggs....they were hitting the main line. When a fish would take off with that main line in the mouth, and he pulled into the fish, the leader was next to the body and he got a foul hooked fish.

After three years of this, and seeing all of the "legal fish" hooked on jigs, he gave up and started using jigs. Yeah, he saw all of the people fishing eggs next to him who would act superior. But their bait was in the same place mine was, and you should have seen them set the hook. They would rip just like everyone else.

This guy learned to hook the fish with a jig on the bottom, hooking the fish in the jaw most of the time. He foul hooked a fish maybe 1 out of 10.

You see, this guy didn't call it fishing. He called it catching. He let most of his fish go. He just liked to fight big fish. Sure, he kept a few hatchery fish to eat, but not a lot.

This guy did it for over 10 consecutive years. Yes...he fished in the lower river near 200 other guys. He supposed there might have been places upriver where "someone" actually got a chinook to take a bait. But down in mess of guys in the lower river...nobody ever got a chinook to take a bait. If you say you did, he would have called BS on you. He saw how you set the hook...

OK, sure...if you fished high tide and fished bait under a float, and you fished for a week, you might hook one. Nice.

But for the rest of us, we just wanted to fight a few fish, a few hatchery fish.

With the concentration of "fishermen" (snaggers if you must) and the concentration of chinook (read that as hatchery fish), there is just no way this is a quality fishing experience. Adjust the regulations anyway you want. Nothing substantive will change. The only thing that changes is technicalities.

Limit the fish taken, and throw back foul hooked fish (in the body, don't make me explain everything). That is all that matters on the Samish. Yes, I kinda let it slip (oh boy...like you had not caught on), that I was this guy. I get a little tired of snobbery when it comes to fishing, and especially when it comes to the Samish. The fish aren't biting down there in the middle of 200 guys. They are scared and trying to slip through. They aren't feeding guys, and there is no "natural" salmon behavior.

I went through all of this before most people had an internet connection, so I had to learn as I went. I didn't have a resource to read like this forum. Also I moved out of the area several years ago, before the moving bait requirement. Since I moved I went up there one time. I picked my day and time and hooked and released 9 chinook one morning. I had a good time, fought some big fish. I didn't kill any of them, and I didn't hurt a single wild fish...cause it is all hatchery. So, now is the time to get all bent out of shape at me and tell me what an awful person I am.

But let me leave you with this. Suppose you would have met that guy on the river...who was still trying to figure out how to hook chinook with eggs, would you have told him to follow you to your "secret" hole and showed him how "you" are able to get chinook to voluntarily bite them? Didn't think so...