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They Keep Getting Bigger

3K views 4 replies 3 participants last post by  NrthFrk16 
#1 ·
I weighed a 21 pound 8 ounce Hooknose today!!! It was caught out of the Snohomish. This fish epitomized hooknose...the 'hook' on this fish was amazing.

Eventhough it wasnt caught on the bugrod, I will post a picture as soon as I get one.

I wish they would open up the Straight for a C&R season in October. I imagine it would drum up alot of business and provide a great oppurtunity for a world class fishery. Maybe we should start writing letters...
Imagine hooking into one of those fish on the flyrod in a 16 foot kicker boat in the middle of the Straight!! It would be totally amazing!!!

Word also has it that a 25 pound fish was weighed out at Sekiu or PA or somewhere this weekend. Im looking for a newspaper article that confirms this.
 
#3 ·
ryan,

an october c&r fishery would be nice for us... but imo it wouldn't drum up much business. just look at the last two weeks of the season throughout the strait from the ocean to port townsend. the heaviest pressure was in sekiu... and since the pressure was light there last year in september... my opinion is that the main reason for the increased pressure was for one reason, and that's that sekiu was open for wild fish retention. a simple change in regs results in a big increase in pressure. past c&r seasons in the strait have seen a immediate drop in pressure (like a boulder being dropped from el capitan in yosemite).

plus, we do have to take into account mortality. most of the hatchery fish have passed by now (the mark rate for those of us fishing in ports that conserve wild coho got real bad after the 15th of september). plus, the average angler handles saltwater salmon way too much for a loose scaled fish... and gear types such as the double hook rig which is common for salmon cause much more damage than a single hook. i think it would be tough to convince the state to extend the season, especially since it would require more funds from the state to pay the fish checkers for an extra month (yes, no fish would be kept, but i'm sure they'd want to know the number of fish c&r'd in this type of fishery).

by all means write wdfw and ask for it (and go to the north of falcon process)... but don't be surprised if they can't find funds for the fishery with the small number of people that would take part in such a fishery.

chris
 
#4 ·
I've fished that C&R extension when it was in place and to your point have been the ONLY boat out there on a weekend. While most were pulling docks, Chris from Van Ripers let us have the big room and gave us personal attention for showing up. He couldn't understand why no one shows, nor could we. We even got some resident kings to grab the flies (10-12 # class) along with the plentiful silvers, again very few boats in sight and those may have been Canadians out in the lanes.

It's too bad really, such a great fishery and all. I think it's decades of conditioning that the fishery out there is all about meat, and if people can't get meat in return well then they aren't going all the way to Sekiu. Don't get me wrong, when there is a strong run I love to harvest my share of fresh coho, king, halibut, or whatever. But I'd go for good fishing and no retention any day, and if the runs are not strong I wouldn't want anything kept by me or anyone.

Maybe as we approach metropolis the situation changes... for instance most of the 12 years I lived out there Bush Pt. and much of the surrounding area was closed in October. This meant the action that I would consider "close enough" was shut down. The years it was open were incredible. As the pursuit of coho salmon from shore with flyrods intensifies, the availability of these areas closer to the population as C&R extended seasons could be very important to the nurturing saltchuck angling popularity as it grows in the pacific northwest over the next decade.

I would love to see a C&R no bait shore fishing extension in the premier fishing / readily accessible places around Puget Sound with the objective being that anglers could continue to C&R big late coho using lures and flies from shore. As the chum and winter run steelhead arrive, who knows what surprises one could have while casting flies into the shoreline rips.

Any thoughts on that?
 
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