My Annual post is a bit delayed. I want to remind blackmouth fishermen to stay away from coho killers and small bait to avoid total overkill on shakers. Todays shakers are our keepers for 2020 and 2021. Shakers suffer a HIGH mortality rate when released.
I heard a kid saying, "We got 25 shakers...". What a waste of resource, and waste of time fishing. I was guilty of it in the past...just going with the flow and trolling what everyone is talking about .
Go with bigger bait to avoid the shakers, keep the areas open by staying below quota, and ensure AHFMD, BUT only when they are big enough to keep!

Lets say that kid got 15 shakers, he fishes 10 blackmouth days, thus killing 150 potential future fish. That's just one fisherman!

Join the trend to target keepers, not drag shakers!

I also have to remind myself that when I get into an area with a lot of juvenile fish, I need to move to another area!

That, and I've really been looking forward to getting better at fishing Tomic plugs.

Big blue plugs fished deep.

Unfortunately a lot of the time those sub-adult fish in the 14-20" range are right in there feeding on the same forage as the adults so if you're leaving an area full of 18"ers you're probably also leaving the mature keepers.

Running squids and ace-hi's tends to catch far less shakers as well on a case-by-case basis.

I wish the winter fish were as willing to bite the plugs as the summer kings but it just seems they are not, although you will catch fish on them.

While the reminder is worthwhile suggesting a 100% mortality is inaccurate and could be counter-productive given the Orca recovery efforts.

If you haven't read Danny Westneat's column in Sunday's Seattle Times you should. He specifically criticized the Task Force for not doing enough to eliminate fishing impacts on Chinook. Yes, I specifically used the "eliminate" word as he suggested a multi-year closure and, ironically, used extensive quotes from WFC's Kurt Beardslee without recognizing that WFC has been adamantly against hatcheries which produce 80% of P.S. Chinook.

Larry, I agree but I hate to admit that a lot of hookups with shakers on my boat are mortal. There's no way (unless your boat has a vet with a fish ICU on board) that a 2/0 - 5/0 hook impaling a 6-12 inch fish is going to result in a survivable release.

I personally am torn every time I hook a shaker. I hate it. Not because of loss of fishing time, but because I know I should be recording something on my tag.... Tinkering with gear and location definitely has helped reduce my impacts.

That being said, it's the nature of fishing Puget Sound. And as was the intent of the initial post, we all must do our part to help prevent our impact on the little ones. But WDFW also needs to realize there are other issues impacting juvenile salmon survival than us sporties. The more and more we show our desire and willingness to adjust our techniques to protect the resource, the more opportunity we'll be allocated.

The winter "shakers" tend to be larger than that so it's not a direct comparison. I think mainly in the winter you're catching 16-20" sub-adult "shakers" as compared to the summer fishery where those little smolt size shakers are more abundant. We rarely catch any 6-12" fish in the winter time.

Thanks for informing me. I haven't had the opportunity to fish PS in the winter until recently so my impact comment was definitely based on my experience being mostly a summer king and coho fisherman.

I am very interested in learning about these seasonal differences. So many things to learn, so little time to fish.

Without a doubt the best strategy available to avoid incidental mortality when blackmouth fishing in Puget Sound, is to bring me with you.

I am basically blackmouth repellant. Which is good because it's steelhead season.

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I have never noticed a major difference in lure size and shakers. IME, and I’ve used some big commercial stuff, the big stuff just skewers them different.

I truly respect your opinion, yet my my experiences have been somewhat different. My experience has been that spoons/plug cut herring, and or small/fast plugs hook far more dinks than a 5" or 6" plug will. Yes the large slow plugs will still hook dinks just not a many as a small/fast/glittery lure will. And yes, I have hooked dinks on large, white, slow plugs, mostly hooked through the top of the head, and if I was paying attention and I did not drown them, they seemed to swim away just fine, how long they survived after the release I do not know.

Oh yes I should say that large, slow, and non sparkly lures have often produced for me winter blsckmouth.

I should’ve been more clear. I was speaking of spoons (hootchies to a lesser extent) only. Their quick erratic action tend to skewer curious youngsters. I agree that the larger plugs a bit slower don’t hook nearly as many shakers. I’ll do that often when I get into smaller fish and I’ll go deeper as I tend to get larger fish the deeper I go......usually. Good luck out there.

Thanks.

We may have to face the reality that there is no release option in a "deep" conservation situation. Any and all fish encountered are killed.No release. This would apply to rec and commercial. All retained, all reported.

If you prefer to fish highly selective gear then maybe you can avoid the less desirable fish.

There is some work with Atlantic Salmon that C&R'd females successfully spawn but produce fewer smolts. So, in that case, a C&R fishery requires a higher escapement goal than a C&K fishery........

Towed a couple of tomic plugs around last time out for a couple of hours in between crab pot soaks. Two bites, two legal sized fish, and zero shakers in an area that the flasher-spoons/hoochies stick dink balls consistently.