catch and release. . .

. . .keep this in mind! Saw this on another board and it looked share-worthy.

http://www.ginkandgasoline.com/steelhead/you-may-be-killing-steelhead-and-not-even-know-it/

fb

Silly me. Turns out that after all these years and hundreds of fish, I should have been knocking them on the side of the face. Who'da knowed?


Not buying it.

Show me the data.

I once saw a picture of a steelhead with half it's nose smashed in . It was still very much alive. If this were true we would see dead fish floating down the rivers . I'm not buying into it either

Need more information. If this occurred often, we'd see lots of dead steelhead, but we don't.

I'd like to see the data they reference too but the general premise makes sense though.

I'm now a big believer in (friendly) landing nets for steelhead. They allow the fish to be kept off the rocks and also allow them to be landed before completely exhausted. Trying to land them in water without a net creates all sorts of opportunities for problems.

I could see it, fish thrash violently when pulled from the water , often throwing themselves and slaming into various objects, especially when you are pulling them up onto the bank.

Interesting.

+1

IMO its the only way to go.

I'd really like to see the data on that study, anyone have a link??

A few observations....

Obviously, there are no anatomical differences of any signficance between wild steelhead and hatchery steelhead. Hatchery fish are not bred to have harder skulls than wild ones. So if this is happening to wild fish, it should be happening to hatchery fish too.

In order to determine the cause of death, they would need to do a necropsy (not an autopsy, that's for humans). Doing a necropsy on a wild animal to determine the cause of death is very difficult to do. Doing one in the field is even more difficult. I find it hard to believe these folks had the necessary equipment to accurately determine the cause of death, while streamside.

Sampling with rod and reel is a long accepted method of capturing fish for research (tough duty....) in remote areas, primarily because of the high survival rate of the fish. This study suggests otherwise. It casts doubt (pardon the pun) on reliability of the technique. Perhaps, but more research would need to be done to validate the findings.

Lastly, I find it odd they used fly rods. Fly rods are perhaps the least efficient method of angling. Perhaps the most enjoyable and rewarding, but also the least effective. So why did they use it? Perhaps it's the only method allowed on that river, and they could not get sampling permits to do otherwise. Not sure, but I would never consider using a fly rod as a sampling tool.

If true there would be WAY more dead fish. Not saying it can't happen but not as often as they try and make you believe.

Has a bogus nose, concocted body and an agenda finish.

I agree, it'd be nice to see the study's M&M and data. No reference to the methods or locale of the necropsy. I would think that determination of piscatorial brain swelling or edema would be sketchy at best in a subject dead in the water, especially for any amount of time. It's hard enough in a human, who has a conveniently closed skull cavity, and I've done it aplenty. Brain hemorrhage is a lot easier to see. Obviously a very limited data set, with more questions than answers. I choose to view this as a good reminder of careful fish handling, regardless of whether it's BS. A tailing glove or knotless net in calf-deep water are both good options,

fb

Although not backed up by a lot of empiracal data, Bob Hooton of BC noted that C&R regs in BC did not produce the results hoped for. Not enough fish seem to survive release long enough to spawn successfully,

Having walked the the entire anadromous zone of some creeks weekly, during spawning season on a known number of fish I can recall finding one steelhead carcass even though we know that good number died.

First person to invent and patent a fish helmet is going to be rich.

So the report is saying that it is bad for the fish to be dragged into the shallows where it might thrash around? Is that not obvious to most people?

The safest way to CNR is probably via pliers in knee deep water or deeper without even handling the fish using gear appropriate for the job, but those pictures suck AMIRIGHT? You don't get the sweet feeling of watching the fish Vee back into the depths from the shallows, and the sweet SIMMS catalog cover picture of the splash back in the face as it speeds off.

NAIL ON HEAD.

Could it be that what the C&R fisherman likes & what's best for the wild ironhead are @ odds?



c/22

This just in.... New data, the fish were traumatized while they beat their head on the gravel bar while the researchers installed a GPS tracking device on them. Oh yeah the fish were out of the water for 5 minutes and handled using the "death grip" to keep from flopping so much!

Not really but you get the idea. This article has an agenda to get across that poor fish handling contributes to fish mortality. Most already know this.

The take home message that anglers should improve their handling of fish is fine, but this article is smoke and mirrors and easily could have been dry labbed and published on the internet to push for better fish handling publicity.

I agree with a previous posters as well, something fishy, feasibility of the study, ("fly rods most effective way to land fish unharmed") since when??? try a plug rod or heavy float rod.

arent Steelhead known to die if you fight them for too long and they exert all their energy?

kinda throws fly rods out the window...

as far as them dying from hitting their heads on rocks, i fully agree with that... as i said on a FB status on this subject, i dont use clubs, or sticks, or rocks to beat my fish over the head, i use my Channel Lock Needle Nose pliers, and just rap em once or twice on the top of the head with the mid section of the plier (they are regular sized pliers)... the fish is generally dead within 5 minutes, so smashing its head, dropping it, ect, could most deffinately have the same effect...

i really hate hearing the stories about "oh i had to fight this 20 pound King for 15 minutes straight" (some say an hour) and things of that nature... with a fly rod, thats a major possibility, but with gear rods, it should never happen on rivers while bank fishing... i dont think i have ever in my life passed the 5 minute mark, but then again, i dont sit there with a stop watch, because my main objective is to get the thing in as quickly as possible, and either kill it where applicable or let it go with the least amount of energy wasted, because of it being a native fish...

fish need to be treated like newborns, because they are just as fragile when you take them out of the water... i dont like keeping fish out of the water more than 10-15 seconds, but again, thats just my 2 pesos...

Any rod regardless of the type can be a danger to fish if in the wrong hands.
I watched a guy this summer on the beach tossing herring under a float take 20 minutes to land a 6 lb silver. Talk about a milk job.

Use the heaviest leader you can and take the fight to the fish to insure a quick and safe release.
SF

This has been brought up in the past by other members of this forum. Part of the recent Skagit River steelhead genetic study involved tracking the movement of adult steelhead throughout the Skagit River and its tributaries. In order to do this, acoustic tags were inserted down the throats of wild Skagit River steelhead. Of the 10 fish that were mentioned in the presentation that I attended (I'm sure there were more than 10 fish involved in this), one died shortly after being landed. The remaining steelhead (9) survived the encounter. Anyhow, their movements were tracked, via receivers, as they traveled throughout the basin. From what I recall, all 9 were presumed to have spawned successfully.

Without a doubt there is some mortality associated with releasing steelhead (or any other fish for that matter) and the severity of the mortality rate can be influenced by how the fish are handled. But something is a bit "fishy" with this report.

It just does not match what I have seen in the "real" world. During the 1980s when wild steelhead release was required (especially the first couple years with the dreaded fin cards) there were thousand of steelhead being released on north Puget Sound rivers. As others have pointed out if the mortality was even closed to something like 50% there would have been dead steelhead on every bar every day of the season; if fact many opposed to the regulation change to WSR predicted that would be the case. As we now know that was not the case.

Steelhead and especially summer fish have evolved to take advantage of habitats above difficult barriers that other fish can not reach. They do this by being very good jumpers. One only needs to spend sometime at a difficult barrier watch the fish jumping and banging themselves off the rocks to quickly come to the conclusion that their skulls must not be all that fragile.

It is standard practice at steelhead hatcheries to crowd the fish to sort and check for "ripeness" prior to spawning. The fish in the hold raceways are pushed into a confined so they can be individually handled. In the process some of those fish are banging their heads against the crowders, the sides of the raceways and other objects. Typically during the spawning season this process is repeated weekly. If the fish were as fragile as reported one would expect to see dozens of mortalities for every week of handling. Again that is not the case.

It is pretty clear from various hooking mortality studies that the best correlation to mortality rates is the location of hooking (whether in a critical area or non-critical area). If mortality associated with head trauma was a high as claimed that hooking site correlation would not hold.

As I said the article seems a bit "fishy" but still it is the responsibility of the ethical angler to take care in how they handle their fish to be released.

curt

Nate, it ain't about the rod. It's about the fisherman. I'll land a fish on my 8wt just as quick as my 1025C.

There was a long thread on WFF.com about handling of ESA listed fish, mostly pointed to the Columbia River tribs and the wild steelhead. Some were of the opinion there should be some sort of course everyone needs to take to fish over ESA listed species. Kind of like the hunter education course. I thought it was a bit silly to put it mildly.

I pointed to the saltwater handling rules and thought that type of regs change would be a lot more reasonable than requiring everyone to take a course to fish.

But, many of them took the idea and ran with it. Now there's a FB page exploring the idea.

The fun starts on page 2. If this is poor form on my part, I'll delete it.

http://www.washingtonflyfishing.com/forum/index.php?threads/methow-shutdown.93693/

It sounds to me like the solution is to ban the study of steelhead.

point taken wntrrn... very good point too, it takes me a tad longer with fly rods to land my fish, which is why they sit here in the rod tubes... its not that i dont enjoy it, its that i dont enjoy potentially killing fish because im not good enough at what im trying to do... so i use my spinning or BC rods and fish them that way, because i can get 20+ pound Kings to the bank and either out of the river, or swimming in very short order... im fairly confident i would get spooled by a large fish on a fly rod, and i dont want to have 100 feet of crap trailing behind a fish i couldnt keep anyways, potentially killing it by tangling up ect....

fish handling practices really piss me off, and i have learned this year, to just let it go, because it does nothing by me getting mad... absolutely nothing at all... you can try to help, but 90 percent of the time it goes in 1 ear and out the other, and thats because thats how they were taught to fish, and are not willing to change...

fishing is actually something i really need to pay attention to the way it affects me, because its in my blood, its what i do, and people really piss me off with some of the things that they do... and for the last 15 or so years, i had no problem voicing that opinion loudly, and with a certian "tone", which, will end up getting me in trouble...

as far as the course, yeah i agree, thats a pretty stupid idea.... if we have to take a course on fish handling practices on ESA listed species in certian waters, well, natives should have their nets no where near those waters....

again, just my pesos...

A degree and a research job does not make anyone an expert in handling fish. Ive seen a lot of evidence otherwise in my career as a biologist. Anyone seeking to evaluate impacts of fisheries needs to evaluate those fisheries directly and not infer impacts for other sampling. If fish are as sensitive as many seem to say, there should be no fisheries -catch and release or not. The truth lies in the middle somewhere.

Thanks for the real world perspective there Smalma. Great insight.

ColeyG-

I am not Curt, if you are responding to my post, but in my 30+ years in this game I have seen a lot of nonsense passed off as fact.

Everyone should be a skeptic, the null hypothesis should always be the starting assumption. Science should be convincing before we jump to conclusions.

Thanks for your perspective as well Milt.

How hard can it be to keep a native Steelhead from banging it's head on the rocks? Not very hard, maybe think about a long line release and not even touching it.

Hmmmmmm . Not buying it all. Good luck,


SZ

Those posers with their crappy spinning reels that end up running up into the drift to land their fish are a poor excuse for a fishermen.

So, I wonder what the author of this report would have to say about the cover photo of "The Adipose" that just came out.....

Best to land on the side of caution a knotless net is a must. I have seen chrome bright dead steelhead floating by my boat. In most instances they looked perfect but they were rolling along the bottom. I can't say for sure what caused it to happen but after reading the article it kind of makes sense. Even if it’s an exaggeration shouldn’t we try a bit harder to keep the fish alive? I have talked to other fishermen that have seen the same thing so I’m surprised no one here has seen that.

I've seen a few.

I've seen chrome brite dead salmon dead in the slack water, remember one 20 lb. chrome hen on the Humptulips, she still had the hook in her jaw & about a foot of mono trailing out, broken leader. She must have fought till close to death broken off & limped away to die.

Steelhead move in smaller numbers, so we likely see less of the dead. But there are some.

I think all here can agreed that sliding a native up the bar to bash its head on the cobble & batter itself up rolling in sand & rock is not the correct technique.



c/22

lactic acid kills more released fish than quick rough handling.......it just ain't fashionable