When talking to people about steelhead, the general response is "man, it was great, I released 3 wild steelhead today. What an awesome day, I love fishing!!!" On the other hand when it comes to fishing in the Sound the repsonses I hear a complete opposite "It sucked! I landed 5 kings and no coho, I had to put all of the kings back , I sure would like to stick one of those chinook on the grill." Folks you just landed 5 kings!!! The toughest fighting fish in the NW without a question!! I have a hard time with this issue, personally I feel no different about C & R on wild steelhead than I do releasing Kings.
Thoughts?

Troustream, do I know you? I couldn't agree more. As Johnny Cochran said "It makes no sense"

Let me get this striaght.
You feel the same about BBQing a large, beautiful, hard to find wild, ocean run rainbow as you do broiling a run of the mill, 27lb. buck king?

do I hear you right?

So yeah, Here are my thoughts.
When you do hook that native coho and have to release it, then what?
And then it comes up my way, on my river, in my fav., hole and I hook it and I have to release it also.

The wife and I were talkin about it over lunch yesturday and we came to the conclusion to create the wild humpy coalition. Fin clipped IS the future, Be it salt or fresh waa waa.

Me personably would rather you bonk a native king or cohoe than a native oceanrun rainbow.


Hope I red u right.

How about it???...If its Wild, Let if Go!!! Well, unless its a humpy or you're up in Alaska.

Before I get flamed, I was being sarcastic about the last bit if you didnt already notice.

[ 08-02-2001: Message edited by: RPetzold ]

Flickabobber, I am not in favor of bonking anything wild! I don't see the difference in Bonking a Wild Steelhead and Bonking a Wild Chinook. I love wild steelhead and feel that it should have been C & R on Wild Steelhead 10 years ago, but if you wish to continue fishing you better be as or more concerned about Wild Chinook than Steelhead. steelhead are actually native to very few streams in the PNW an therefore have a far less value than Chinook. The goverment places a much higher value on chinook than they do Steelhead, this must be recognized by the saltwater fisherman. But saltwater fisherman have a much different , mindset than do freshwater fisherman, one could say that "saltwaterfisherman are behind the times". The main difference being that some "meaning more than the average saltwater fisherman"" freshwater fisherman can appreciate the declining runs of wild steelhead, while the "average" Saltwater fisherman is there with the sole purpose of killing fish, whether hathery or wild, it makes no differnce to them. They are just there to bring something home for the BBQ. It seem that the sport of angling means little to the "average" saltwater fisherman.

I've often wondered about that prevalent 'tude also. I think it comes from the likelyhood that more people like eating fresh salmon than fresh steelhead. I do; for both taste and richness, and better BBQ qualities because the flesh doesn't dry out as easily. I also think it's from the consensus opinion that wild salmon runs are more healthy than wild steelhead runs. This is true in many areas, but not the case in some areas. If a wild chinook or coho run is not healthy enough to sustain a harvest fishery they should also be released from barbless hooks - as I strongly support for wild steelhead. My $0.02 worth.

RT

It dont really see a difference. Wild Salmon and wild steelhead should be treated the same.

I have talked to Bios out here on the OP who say the Quileute river system is produceing as many fish as it can. They say the run size has flattened out. No matter how many smolts wild and hatchery are released only so many will survive. The river system only has enough food to raise so many smolt. So I tend to agree the river systems in our state are produceing as much as they can.

How do we get more fish? FERTILIZE!!!!!!!!!

If the river has more food more smolt will survive both hatchery and wild.

Before they started throwing dead hatchery salmon on the river banks the wild ones were the only ones that were food for smolt. With declineing numbers of wild salmon we got declineing numbers of smolt therfor less returning adults the next cycle and so on.

Without healthy runs of salmon we cant have healthy runs of steelhead. Steelhead use the salmon as a food source during a juvenile period as well as the bugs. And the river will only produce as many steelhead and bugs as it can.

I think are fish runs will explode if they are given the chance. The steelhead even faster but only as fast as the salmon can produce food for them (food being the salmon). The steelhead play on the salmon run size and if you have big runs of salmon you have have higher smolt survival for steelhead.

The Quileute system had just over 14,000 Winter steelhead adults spawn two years ago.
On the Quileute System the survival rate from smolt to adult can be as high as 15% under ideal conditions. If all the fish were aloud to do thier thing for one cycle without any harvest you could see a steelhead run of 14,000 produce 210,000 adults the next cycle.

Just amagine 210,000 steelhead. But the river could only produce that many if it had enough food but the system only has enough food for 14,000.

With the projected salmon runs this year being close to historical records there just could be enough food.

The sad thing is we will never know because under the MSY model all the "EXCESS" fish will be harvested. Be it the tribes, the sporties, or comercial the excess fish will be caught.

We will never see our rivers even produce 10% of the potential because they arnt given the chance.

So as it sits now my home river is only producing enough fish to maintain genetic diversity, but just enough. WE HOPE!!!!

I rambeled way off base here but I hope you can see why wild salmon are just as important as wild steelhead. Without one you just cant have the other. So even if you dont hold the wild salmon as deer to your heart you should because every one of those you kill makes your home river loose more wild steelhead produceing pontential.

REMEMBER THE NEXT TIME YOU TAKE A WILD SALMON OUT OF YOUR FAVORITE WILD STEELHEAD RIVER THAT YOUR TAKEING EVEN TO POSSIBILITY AWAY FOR MORE WILD STEELHEAD.

Rich G,
Makes sense to me.Good luck,
STRIKE ZONE

I have released about 11 kings this year, three hatchery, and had a blast fighting them. My dad let a 35lb fish go as well. These were all in the salt, and before any river fisherman starts spouting his "holier than thou" BS I would warn them not to make any generalizations about other methods. (think fly purists vs. spin fishermen)

There are many river fishermen out there who go fishing with the same two objectives that Salts go after. 1. Catch some fish. 2. Bring something home for dinner. This attitude will not accomplish anything but to divide us. We all support the same resource with our efforts in Stream Team, license sales, and taxes paid on boats and gear. Teach folks the propper attitude, and they will come around. Talk down to/about them and they will shut you out.

I wouldn't bonk a wild steelhead because most of the runs are just not healthy enough in my opinion. I have no qualms about bonking any king if it is legal to do so.

Just my thoughts. Andy

P.S. I think that a 30lb tuna will outclass a 30lb king any day of the week. These fish will scream more line off of your reel than you can think is possible. Then think about the fact that I got 34 of these fish in 24 hours. I have yet to have one give up, as they always fight all the way to the boat. Of course, you have to go 70 miles offshore to get them. Tough trip for tougher fish.

Dogfish,

Hope your not talking about my post.

Nor do I have a problem with bonking any wild fish if the runs are healthy. But the bad news is none of our wild runs are healthy. Healthy meaning up to historical levels. In my opinion none of our fish runs are even close to a healthy status, they wont be healthy untill the river's are so full with wild salmon you could walk across them. At this point our rivers are producing the minimum of their potential and are harvested to the maximum of their output. that means only the minimum is left to replenish itself. One bad thing happens or the numbers were inflated and we are in trouble. There is no room for mistakes or mishaps because the fish runs are pushed to the limit already. One year with floods or drouts or over harvest can do a run in. That is the point we have all pushed it to.

All these good hatchery salmon runs we are having are BS. In my opinion its a total waste and hurting the wild runs. Sure its fun for us to have an oportunity to go after these fish and eat a few but at the same time its putting stress on depressed wild stocks by incidental catch by sporties and nets.

Plain and simple hatchery salmon and steelhead dont do wild salmon and steelhead a bit of good.

The fact is without the wild fish you have nothin but dead rivers.

Hi Rich,

No problem about your post. Salmontackler was the primary person I was respondong to. I only keep maybe 2 kings a year, usually the first legal above 15lbs, and another one some time later on in the year if I am running low on fish in the freezer. I average about 10 to 30 kings a year as bycatch when targeting silvers, usually in the mornings. I love the way they fight, but I like silvers much more for tablefare, so I concentrate on them. Some folks may call me crazy, but you get a good feeling after a fair fight and letting that pig swim away.

I agree with you on the hatchery issue as well to a certain extent, but anything short of shutting down all harvest won't make an immediate impact on escapement. As long as we allow fishing, the hatchery fish are needed in some areas to provide the fodder for the masses.

The alternative would be to collect all of the hatchery fish as they come in, allow no reproduction from them for 5 or 6 years to "clean out" the system and for everyone to go after the natives only. Then EVERY fish caught would be one less native, as opposed to primarily hatchery fish being taken.

I may be oversimplifying things, but I believe that most of us are working for the same goal, and many of us "go both ways", (river and salt, get your minds out of the gutter! ).

BTW, I stopped in at that sporting goods store in Forks when I went to Sekiu last weekend. The older fellah in their fixed my broken rod tip in about 2 minutes, and gave me a brief rundown on what was happening in the local rivers. Nice shop and a nice little town.

Andy

Right on, Rich G., and well put!!
As you know I fish several rivers, and it's always interesting to see how much aquatic insect activity there is in the river. Rivers with predominantly hatchery runs are almost devoid of aquatics, where rivers & systems with wild runs have a good mix of insects. The smolts must have the food stocks, or they wont survive. At the very best, they'll move downstream or out, where they become part of the food chain before they are big enough to survive.
Why F&W people dont put the spawned out hatchery carcasses back into the system they came out of, is a mystery to me. They have no apparent value beyond that. Maybe a WDFW Area Habitat Biologist would care to respond to the question.
Another point, while I'm on my soap box.
We appear to be seeing a good return of all species this year. And maybe even this winter will see a good return of Steelhead, if the rains come in time. That's the good news.
But I think we may not be in as good shape as we think. The fish returning this season have enjoyed good feeding due to the warm oceans and a greater abundance of forage, so offshore mortality hasnt been as bad. The fish may be smaller, but there should be more of them.
I hope WDFW and NMFS dont misinterpret the short term news as the crisis having passed before they permit more commercial fishery pressure. Once the Ocean temps return to normal, and the returning runs will begin to stabilize, then we'll see what is really happening to the runs.
Just my opinion, and I'm getting out before I get on my other favorite topic, tribal netting.
BTW, how's the Hoh these days?? I drove by earlier this week, and the color looks good, but nobody on the water. Anybody doing any good?

I hit some nice Kings out in Sekiu a couple of days ago. We fished close in west of the caves and boated seven Kings and a but load of silvers. We fished for three hours without one hatchery fish. All the kings were over 10 pounds with one over 30. Felt good watching those footbals swim away. Just cut them off beside the boat. Strange thing was they were right up on the surface. Was troling at Coho speed with a 1.5 0z sinker on the 1084 steelie rods. Wierd?????

Hi Rich,

Same experience here at Sekiu. All 11 of those kings, plus the ones my dad and brother-in-law caught were all in the top 25 feet in the water column. My dad caught one small 5lber at about 3:00pm, but all of our other kings have been morning fish, with only a few past 9:00am.

We had to do cpr on a big 35 lb fish (wild), but after about a minute, he was doing fine.

Andy

Dogfish, for your information, I spend more time in the salt than I do anywhere else in Western Wa. So calling my post river fisherman "holier than now" attitude is pure BS. Also, I doubt many, if any spend more time per week speaking with saltwater anglers about fishing in Puget Sound, trust me I am qualified to generalize the average Puget Sound saltwater fisherman! (In no way am I saying that I an expert on fishing Puget Sound, just spend much time discussing it)

[ 08-03-2001: Message edited by: salmontackler ]

Many of the river fishermen I meet are creeps who snag fish, throw trash around, keep wild fish, fish in closed areas, fish at night with bait in restriced zones, brag about the number of punchcards they've filled, retain more than their daily limit, break their beer bottles on the shore, and cast over your line at will.

While I have the highest regard for the members of this board, the general fishing public rarely fails to thoroughly piss me off.

What percentage of hatchery kings are finclipped? I know the tribes would not let them clip them all. I have no problems bonking a king. For one, there's no sure way to tell if it is a hatchery fish or not and because they taste damn good.

Howdy Salmontackler,

I'm not picking a fight, just suggesting a method for solving your irritation. As a person who comes in contact with LOTS of saltwater fishermen, you then have a unique opportunity to impart some of your wisdom upon them.

My first trip to the peninsula took place about 12 years ago. I was fishing with a friend who had gotten me involved in catch & release flyfishing. He showed me that if you were in an area where you had the possibility of catching fish after fish all day long, it was wiser to release the majority of your catch so that your could fight more fish. At the end of that first day I had caught 13 September silvers at Sekiu. The smallest was about 12 pounds. We fished from sun-up until about 5pm that night. We got back to the campground and the two guys next to us asked what took us so long, afterall, we only caught 2 fish. These guys told us that they were done fishing by 7:30 am and were back on the beach by 8:00am. (These are probably the type of folks you were talikng about.) They showed us their fish, four fish in the 10 pound range. We showed them ours, the smallest was 17. Did we keep our liimits? Yes, but we let many of our fish go, and if we hadn't caught another fish after the first one we had kept, we would have still had a great trip.

These guys learned a little bit that day about selective fishing, as did I.

Teach people the better way. I know that a lot of folks now days have so little time for recreation, and that our society puts emphasis on achieving the goal, so that is probably what some of the shortsighted folks you run into regularly do, they concentrate on the short term goal, limits.

I choose to concentrate on catching fish, and if I boat 20 fish in an evening but we didn't get our limit, hey, we still caught 20 fish, which is more than most folks catch in a whole season. That is what I teach on my boat, maybe you could teach that in your store.

Hope you got some fish this weekend, I couldn't go. Andy