Yep .. that's Fishgal with the approx 25 pound hen. And to our lady flyfishing friend, no it wasn't caught on a plug ... let call her "Spoongal" nowadays.

Parker, your comment on the size of the Quinault hatchery stock just reinforces my comments ... genetics is the name of the game.

More reason I find fault with our steelhead fisheries management in this state: steelhead CANNOT be managed like salmon, because their life histories are NOT the same. Some spawn twice (sometimes three, four, even more times) - and these fish can be forced to run the gauntlet of nets and anglers going, up, going down, going up again, and perhaps going down again ... basically increasing the chances that this fish (a smaller, yet important percentage of the stock) is removed from the gene pool.

In addition, nets and often times anglers (your big fish is a perfect example) selectively kill the bigger members of the stock.

This is one of the primary reasons that I am so strongly opposed to any intentional kill of wild steelhead by sporties and netting by tribes ... we selectively remove the bigger fish and repeat spawners from the possible spawning population. Over time, we see the effects of this ... smaller fish, less repeat spawners, less genetic diversity. Run all the numbers you want in a model to achieve escapement, but the fact is ... the models have ZERO consideration of this fact. We mess with Mother Nature on this one and it WILL screw things up eventually.

Want to see an example of this ... simply look at the state's hatchery fish. Take the first fish back to the hatchery for spawning, and don't have any sort of check in place to see that only the stronger members of such a population are the ones that spawn (if it make it back to the hatchery ... it's good enough - doesn't work that way in the wild), you get brats. Fish that come back earlier and earlier, all look like they came from a cookie cutter, and are even beginning to mutate - I've had two fish come aboard in the past few years with milt on one side, eggs on the other, another with a couple of dorsals, and another yet with two ventrals (same side, three total).

While there is no question that even in C&R, anglers play a role in impacting the runs ... but unlike the other major user group, we can attempt to limit our impact. In fact, I think it is our reponsibility to lessen our impact as much as possible, and the way to do that is to let ALL of them go.