I’m curious what others might think about the Fisheries new policy on sportsman releasing Nooksack wild Coho. This year’s regulations for the Nooksack are two hatchery fish per day and you must release all native fish. Personally I’m all for helping native/wild fish but I am very confused with how the Fisheries Department is regulating this river. The tribe is fishing from Sunday at 12:01 AM to Friday at 4:00 PM in river, which allows very little time for “protected” fish to migrate up river unharmed. There is also an on going commercial fishery in Bellingham Bay. So I’m wondering if the Fisheries Department is so concerned with protecting the Native Coho why in God’s name would they allow this sort of commercial fisheries? I would think that if they wanted to protect these fish the commercial schedule might be cut back to three or four days per week and not the approximately six days they have now. It seems to me that over the last three or four years the sportsman and fish keep getting the shorter end of the stick on this system. As of last year we also couldn’t keep any Fall Chinook yet the Indian’s were having an in river targeting fisheries specifically for them. I was catching fish with net marks all over them that I had to release. This year is the same thing. Yesterday I hooked five Chinook; some fin clipped, but had to let them go. This whole thing just doesn’t make since to me. Are we and the fish getting screwed by the Fisheries Department or what?

have to agree with ya there! hey, hows the new boat fishbreath?

FB,

If it looks like a screw, walks like a screw, etc.

The Nooksack has been managed as a hatchery wipe-out fishery for fall chinook and coho for over 30 years. In order to harvest the many surplus hatchery salmon, high harvest rates have more likely than not extirpated any significant "native, wild" populations. Wild spring chinook do occur and perhaps some wild early or very late running coho continue to persist, but I've heard of no evidence.

The regulation to release unmarked salmon at least occupies the moral high ground, even if it's completely unrealistic in terms of sustaining natural production of native stocks. The recreational fishery can, as a practical matter, release unmarked salmon with a high probability for survival to spawning. Not so the purse seine and gillnet fisheries.

So even if your aren't "saving" the wild run, since it doesn't exist, releasing those unmarked fish should make you feel a tiny bit better for doing a good deed on behalf of natural production that could sustain itself if the commercial fishing were ever to be restrained from overharvest.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

Well maybe those hatcheries weren't put there for us sporties, but rather to sustain the commercial guys. I mean, a 30-day salmon season (Oct 1 to Oct 31) on the North Fork isn't exactly generous...

And yes the tribes net the snot out of the system, but they also run a hatchery on the South Fork that adds a share...interesting, innit, that we can fish the South Fork from Oct 1 to Dec 31...three times as long as we can fish the North Fork...whatsupwidat? Is the tribe's hatchery really that much more productive than the state's?

I think us sporties should get together and buy the Middle Fork, institute a semi-clipped adipose fin release regulation, and breed a strain of king so big that when they make their first spawning run they'll shred all the gillnets after having sunk all the bay seiners...

Hey Chumsalmon,

The new boat has been great. I've had to iron out a few minor problems with it but over all it's a great boat. Glad I got an Alumaweld and not a brand "X". What a difference from the old Almar!

ya, i bet it is a big difference! just curious here, but what motor did you end up getting. sounds like you got a pretty good outfit, and it sounds like it's another fish catching machine!