The Outdoor Line Forum

Rob-
It may well be that commercial fisheries are taking more fish than the recreational fishery. However the key point I was making it less about how many are being caught but the selection against older fish that the various fisheries are putting on the populations. In this case it is the hook and line fishing (both the troll and recreational fisheries) that are creating most of the selection. With Chinook the various net fisheries are much less age selective.

Now with coho there is little doubt that gill nets are very size selective and heavy fished populations quickly see reduced body size.

Guess the key point here is that as with most things in the fisheries world issues are rarely black and white with the devil always being in the details.

Tight lines
Curt

Regardless...I want to go to Chile to catch one of these big king salmon and I promise I won't select it out of the gene pool. I lieu of this I will hold it out of the water for a quick photo...the next worst thing

Robbo wrote:Regardless...I want to go to Chile to catch one of these big king salmon and I promise I won't select it out of the gene pool. I lieu of this I will hold it out of the water for a quick photo...the next worst thing

Just make sure you get down there before Sparkey arrives and starts changing all their fish-photo-holding laws




damn, some of those rivers have brown trout as big as kings!

It's getting more and more difficult to be a FISHERMAN these days

Robbo wrote:It's getting more and more difficult to be a FISHERMAN these days

word my brothah.....................................

Rob-
I think Smalma is just stating the fact we all know and that is that nets are non discriminatory for the most part (especially with nooks) and that it is the hook and line anglers that harvest with size selection. I understand the point he is making and I would guess the only way to change this would to put a slot limit on fish in these areas. The biggest problem I see with that is that these "fast growing" fish will be in that slot limit at some point and susceptible to harvest as they are now. What is you solution Smalma?

CM