hello folks,
OUCH!!
1. bob, howdy, hiding? hmmmm.....i just enjoy the aspects of free email, cheap i guess. im not against fishing, i do fish myself, however, i limit my days and times to periods of the year when i am least impacting the ecosystem. im not against catch and release, however, i see now that i didn't clarify myself well enough, 5% mortality rates for catch and release = 5% per each time the fish is caught, now if the fish is caught twice that = 10% mortality rate, if the fish is caught three times = 15% mortality rate, etc. a cumulative effect, now i imagine that most of us have had the experience of catching the same fish more than one time and sometimes in the same day, such an experience is a gift, maybe enlightenment, a window into the understanding of what we are doing as human beings. i praise you for releasing thirty pound fish, that is admirable. now, if we look at the concept of catch and release as an entirety then we can begin to see the cumulative effects of any fishery on the health of the fish population. example, when the river system becomes full of smolt and fry, there are a usually a good amount of fisherman on the river, so, these aggressive little guys are known for skewering themselves on flies, lures, bait, etc. and i guarantee that these little guys are caught several times throughout the fishing season, statistics are not exact, so i would not guarantee a fish that is caught 20 times automatically rolls over and kicks the bucket, but, do you think that fish is going to be healthy after experiencing such a situation, i doubt it, and if we think of darwin and the theory of evolution, we know that the fittest survive, right, and the fittest are usually the biggest and strongest, how do those fish get that way? well they are born bigger usually, but their aggressive behavior stems from their larger size and thus, aggressive feeding behavior is probably the norm for the genetically superior fish in the population, do you follow, example: most of us know dogs, or have had dogs, especially puppies, ever notice how the largest of the puppies in the pack dominates the food source, the same applies to nature, thus, out of the hundreds of smolts that are caught each year it is probable that the first ones to be caught(and probably several times which increase the cumulative effects of catch and release = probable death). so i hope that clears up the catch and release stats. it is dangerous, and only a few streams have responded positively to catch and release (most of those streams being in canada)

2. OUR STOCKS OF FISH ARE NOT HEALTHY, THEY ARE A FRACTION OF THE POPULATION THAT EVEN EXISTED 100 YEARS AGO, THUS NONE OF US DESERVE THE RIGHT TO FISH FOR, KILL OR CATCH AND RELEASE THESE FISH, IT IS A LUXURY!!!
3. thank you jim for your response, rivers with critically low stocks should be closed to fishing and certain streams can handle limited catch and release fisheries, however, i would not give people such as bruce crawford at WDFW another dime of money, wdfw relies upon minimal escapement levels that they believe support the bottom line genetic capacity to return the stock to its original pattern of genetic diversity, bottom line MOST OF WDFW IS RUN BY PEOPLE WHO PROBABLY WANT TO DO GOOD WORK, HOWEVER, THE POLICY PEOPLE AND PEOPLE IN CHARGE OF THE SYSTEM KEEP THE GOOD BIOLOGISTS QUIET. WDFW HAS A CHECKERED PAST AT BEST, DO WE WANT TO RELY ON AN AGENCY THAT HAS NEVER PROVEN TO BE STRONG OR INTELLIGENT ENOUGH TO HANDLE THE SALMONID SITUATION, IF I HIRE SOMEONE TO DO A JOB AND THEY NEVER DO THE WORK CORRECTLY, FOR OVER 50 YEARS, THEN I AM GOING TO FIRE THEM! COMPRENDE'