funny that the research curt posted showed lower mortality for coho than chinook.

you can point to a string of floating coho and i can point to years of fishing neah bay and seeing a total of less than five floaters. the gear you fish is just as important, and i hope all of you so concerned with wild coho and mortality are fishing a single barbless hook, and not the common two hook, coho mangling rig.

of course i think having to release a gob of coho to get two hatchery fish gets a bit ridiculous when it takes 20-30 releases to get one hatchery fish. in those cases (which happen more frequently imo inside the strait) a move to wild kill may be appropriate.... except that many people would not just kill their first two coho and head in.

many anglers will still high grade their salmon, or release coho while chinook fishing, or just enjoy catching and releasing a bunch of salmon. thinking that everyone is gonna catch two and be done is a bit naive and basing management on a belief that anglers will kill their first two coho and come back to the docks by 8am is unrealistic.

of course, the further south the closer you get to that increased estuary mortality. catching fish ten miles off cape flattery in august is gonna be a bit closer to the low numbers mentioned in smalma's posted link (6-7%). the dropoff rate seems high since i have never lost a coho to a marine mammal in area 4. that may no longer be as accurate with the massive numbers of sea lions now friggin' everywhere but i lost none in a week of lackluster coho fishing this august with furbags everywhere.