I was wondering what your experience was with the mark rate on coho caught at Sekiu this past season.

More than 25% marked?

Less than 25% marked?

This seems to be the "guideline" that WDFW uses to determine in the mark-selective fishery is appropriate or not... for coho anyway.

Just a thought, not all of us get the opportunity to fish CQ for coho (dang work) but would be interested in the results of this poll. Any chance you could post the results for all to see??

Thanks!!

So far it is running 71% having less than 1 mark for every 4 coho caught... which seems to me makes this selective fishery less supportable than one where the mark rate is greater than 1 in 4.

My experience ranged from 1 marked coho for every 6 caught to 1 for every 10 caught. Meaning the hatchery coho returns did not do as well as forecast or the wild coho did much better than forecast... or both.

There were times when the fish I released were not in good shape due to hook location, etc. I did everything I could to follow the rules, keeping the fish in the water, not in the boat, etc. I wondered whether I was really conserving wild fish with this selective fishery. Anyone else care to share their experience?

Didn't fish Seiku this year but went about 50% at Neah Bay over 6 days of fishing this year. We did a lot of fishing offshore a ways which may have changed our results from fishing close in.

This would not be popular with most anglers, but it is my opinion that keeping the first two fish regardless of hatchery or wild would be better for wild coho.

"This would not be popular with most anglers, but it is my opinion that keeping the first two fish regardless of hatchery or wild would be better for wild coho."

yep
i agree

We had days where it was 1 wild to 1 hatchery and other days when it ran as high as 7 wild to 1 hatchery.

Lots of "wild" fish were lost due to hooking mortality. Not sure if I'd like the first two fish, but could live with one wild in the daily bag.

What isn't known yet to me is the success of the "wild" spawning coho. Improved river habitat and improved ocean conditions are all factors.

The NOF process should be interesting this year.

I made seven trips up to Neah Bay last summer. The first few trips the ratio was close to 1:1. At times they would all be marked while other times they were all wild. As the season wore on it became closer to 5:1 and 6:1 wild to clipped. Last day I was there it was around 10-15:1 wild to clipped.

I rarely use bait and I felt that almost all of the fish I released looked pretty good swimming away with only a few that I thought might not make it.

Interesting post by the way.

CF

I did not make it up to fish CQ this year, but could it have anything to do with the amount of fish present and/or the fact that hatchery fish do not bite as well?
Visit any hatchery that raises coho and you will see that they are getting plenty. I talked to a friend that works for WDFW at the Minter Cr. salmon hatchery (South Sound), he told me that in mid October they had 18,000 ad clipped coho back to the hatchery and were still approaching the peak. The previoups record for returning adults to that facility was 11K and some change. I will try to get the most recent numbers soon. Why were more of these not caught at CQ and PA and in the sound? Would raising the number of hatchery coho that we can keep be considered? Or let the tribes net in front of the hatchery where fewer wild fish would be intercepted, I always thought a good spot for them to net would be a fish ladder, can't be much more selective than that.

NEN

On my 4 trips out to Sekiu and Neah I had very similar results to what Cutthroat Fan had. There were times when all we caught were Hatchery fish and times when all we caught were nates.

To me it really seemed like once you found a school of Hatchery fish if you went back over the shool you could get them to hit again and again. If on the other hand I hooked a nate I would continue looking rather than heading back to the same school of fish. We had several times when we would find a school and hit 4 or 5 fish in succession out there this year.

Just to update my previous post, Minter Cr. hatchery ended up getting 28,000 coho back to the hatchery, more than double the previous high for that hatchery. Again, why are we not catching these? It will be interesting to see how many were actually caught via CWT samples collected by WDFW.

NEN

Unlike the last few years of higher marine survival and great PS hatchery coho returns, I think this year is a mixed bag. I know of a few PS hatcheries that do not have the 5,000 or 10,000 surplus they thought they would see.

In the majority with less than 25% marked.

I would like to see the results of this poll had that percentage been 10 or 15%. We caught 9 native to 1 hatchery.