My 22# king from Saturday gained 8# when we crossed the bridge to Astoria. A clean Orygun 30.

It didn't help that the biggest fish of the trip hit the lightest rod, reel and line combo we were using, even while we were chasing it with the boat it was still taking line. When we caught up and had it near the boat it did a couple laps under the boat, I had the rod deep in the water and CM was pivoting the boat over it quickly to get the correct position. This happened a couple of times, at the end of one of these maneuvers the line just went slack.

That 40 year old 5000 or whatever it is really got a work out, I think you said it had a 3 to 1 retrieve ratio, I know that was the fastest I've ever spun a crank handle. Had we not chased it I would have been easily spooled even though it was filled with light braid.

Doc arrived just before dinner and took over the neighboring campsite, seemed like the right thing to do since they weren't around. They were a little confused when they came back after dark to find a large boat and truck parked in their space right next to their tents. I went over and explained that it was just temporary and he could move the rig soon. They said OK and parked on the grass. Francis went over to their site a few minutes later and ended up getting to keep the parking area, not sure how he did it.

Hey those little Asian guys from Indonesia get special treatment...roflmao.

CM

A question for you regular B10 fishers.

I was both pleased and depressed to see the high percentage of ad-clipped Chinook in our catch last week. Are the rest of you seeing something simiar?

Does anyone voluntarily release the unclipped Chinook?

Tight lines
Curt

Smalma, I would say that approx. 50% of our chinook were ad clipped...definitely more than in years past. Also, no I do not release the non clipped URB's...they are the main reason I go down there and they taste great on the bbq!

CM

Smalma,

What would be the reason for releasing unmarked URBs? By all accounts that is by far the healthiest natural production chinook stock in the state, maybe the region, generally producing a significant number of fish surplus to escapement.

Sg

Easy to keep thinking this when you have many millions of unmarked hatchery fish being released. Get them all marked and then you might start to get some sense of the real health of this major spawning aggregate.

OncyT,

Good point. But all I've ever heard about the URB stock is that it is healthy and has a harvestable surplus. There are hatchery URBs in the mix, but is there any data or analysis indicating that hatchery URBs are masking the status of the natural stock and that the natural stock isn't healthy enough to support the harvest? That would be good information to have. Do you know where I could find it?

Sg

Sg, anytime you have large numbers of unmarked hatchery fish returning they mask the status of natural populations. There would be no data to indicate that masking because of the masking. Typically, where folks have used expansion of CWT recoveries, they estimate low contribution of hatchery fish to natural spawning (simply because the likelihood of encountering one of the CWT's is extremely low), but when the marked fraction is high, the estimated contribution of HOR's to natural spawning gets considerably higher. This is exactly what was seen in Puget Sound after mass marking of fall Chinook and exactly what is being seen in the Lower Columbia as mass marked fall Chinook have begun returning. In many of these cases, it appears that the "natural" populations are simply being sustained by continued straying of hatchery fish and the so-called healthy populations driving management decisions are not so healthy after all. The same could certainly hold true of Hanford Reach spawning aggregate that is the major reason that these URB's are thought to be so healthy. The truth won't be known until the hatchery returns that contribute to natural spawning there are mass marked, but the managers are not particularly interested in finding out what the real status is, since these are about the only unlisted populations around.

CM -
I would agree that the Chinook mark rate has increased. From what I saw last week in our catch and at the dock I thught it may have been in the 2/3 range. Of course the sample size was pretty small which is why I was asking what other folks saw.

I understand and agree with you about the quality of URBs that cut well on the grill. I don't know what it is with the coho but it seems to me that they are consistently of higher table quality than our Puget Sound fish.

Salmo g.
I asked the question about voluntarily releasing those unmarked Chinook because folks here on this site have consistently talked about wild fish protection and selective fishing. However I now see that if the fish taste good and are from what the State thinks is a healthy stock that "bonking" is approved of. Guess that means that most would not have issues with the taking of a wild Quilayute steelhead whose wild population is likely more robust than those Columbia Chinook.

OncyT
It has been recognized that one of the negatives of having hatchery fish (especially Chinook) retruning to a system is the masking of the status of the wild population. I seem to remember reading somewhere (god only knows where) that the distribution of the URBs spawning has shifted recently with fewer using the Columbia and more in the Snake. Do you have any information or insight on that potential shift? And if so would that represent a loss of NORs and an increase in natural spawning hatchery fish?

BTW -
I have no issue with taking fish from healthy populations; I just brought up the issue to see where folks were in regards to Columbia Chinook. I kind of suspected that releasing unclipped tules wasn't the issue as with those up river brights. In addition it provides another opportunity to illustrate the complexity of fisheries management.

Tight lines
Curt

Sorry Curt, I have no knowledge of changing distribution of URB spawning.

Regardless of mark rate or spawner distribution, we should all unite behind the most important tenet of selective PNW fisheries...

ALL hatchery fish MUST die.

HSRG and scarce natural resource dollars are HUGE forces driving the decision making in the hatchery arena. If the clipped fish are NOT harvested and too many end up showing at the hatcheries as surplus or find their way to the spawning gravel as strays, you can bet your a$$ that production at those facilities will be drastically scaled back.

Do your part and bonk generously.

Definitely so if it's a tule hen or a bronze buck.

Less certain if it's a URB. As we move toward more consistent mass marking of hatchery URB's, my stance on releasing unclipped URB's may change.

Of course there's always the possibility that new regs will make that decision for all of us in the not too distant future.

Might want to call the states samplers from the commercial catch to get a better idea of the mark rate, don't think its anywhere near the 2/3rds range..

i dont think the game departments are that stupid, but i could be wrong.

I think Tules are going to right behind Steelhead on the Hatchery Cut list..

Hatchery tules aren't going away anytime soon. They are the bread and butter of Canada's troll fleet. We are under international treaty obligation to produce those fish at some meaningful level.

Was wondering if there were even any kings there today. Less than 1% of what we saw come to net in the fleet were kings. A total coho show.

As to mark rates of chinook, I recal 4-5 years ago the state declaring that in the next life cycle (now) virtually 100% of the state's hatchery king production would be clipped. I see more in the catch these days but it sure ain't 100%.

Why would they spend 30 million to reduce the WCVI troll fleet and then keep raising the hatchery fish that were supporting them..