Any tips on releasing wild coho in the salt?

[Born to be Wild]

Any tips that have worked for you would be appreciated.

This is an excerpt from an email from a fellow ifisher I recieved this morning:

Not going out this weekend, looks like the wind is going to blow pretty hard, plus I've got to get caught up at work. Went out last weekend and put my 12 year old niece into her first salmon (7lb clipped Coho). What a big smile! Also got a mess of Blacks and crab. Just to let you know, I have gone to not even using a net when there are so many native Coho around. Heavy leaders (25-30 lb), just horse them to the boat, look for a clip and flip em' in the boat. If no clip, grab hook with pliers and twist. You lose a few this way, but it just makes me sick to kill and waste any of these fish. Still plan on getting you down here this summer for a trip, schedule is a little mixed up right now though. I'll let you know 3-4 days in advance.

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I don't fish them in the salt much, but would like to get out there and experiment with releasing them again.

Dan

[Born to be Wild]

By the way, 4,053 coho were estimated released during the opening weekend alone.

Appears to be a lot of both fin clipped and non fin clipped coho out there this year. I think we are in for a good return of nate's again this winter.

Dan

* Number of coho released includes fish released for any number of reasons including: no legal adipose fin clip, sub-legal or small fish, and anglers targeting chinook.

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Grab your leader and lift the fish to the surface. Take your gaff and then hook the leader and run the gaff to the fish. Holding the leader away from the fish lift gaff until fishes head is at the surface. Jirk gaff and the hooks are out.

[steelheadslayer]

Ditto on what Keta said. It is rather hard to do this from a charter boat though. I hope they can find a better method.

Dan, did you get that last email? Haven't heard from you. Looks like you've been having a good time catching some fish though, off the rocks or in the big blue.

[Bill Monroe]

Many charters make their own de-hookers with a coat hangar punched into a wooden handle. Bend a 180-hook into the other end, leaving less than an inch of hook. That's all you need and you don't have the danger of flinging a gaff around. just run the hook down the leader. It will go to the shank of the fishing hook. Then simply pull...you ARE using barbless, aren't you?

[Born to be Wild]

Bill,

Do you have the name of any of these charters that are using this home made device? You could post them here or email it to me. I would like to research this and pass it along with the rest of this thread on to the charters.

I would also like to pass it on to the private sport boats but don't know how I could do that. Maybe through the help of ODFW or maybe you could do an article in the Oregonian on tips on releasing wild coho in the salt (unharmed).

You could use tips from this thread and some from the other thread just prior to the season opening.

The season is just getting under way and has a long ways to go. I feel an article could be very beneficial to the wild fish.

Thanks,

Dan

[BOTTOM TIME DIVER]

YOU GUYS ARE PRETTY FANCY! A 16D AND A DOWEL IS ALL THATS NEEDED TO DO THE JOB.

NATIVE SILVER.... SOUNDS LIKE A BUNCH OF BS. CALL THEM WHAT THEY ARE- UNCLIPPED HATCHERY.

GOOD FISHIN'

[Sensei-san]

De-hookers are fine if you can tell that it is a native coho but on a bigger boat the prop/transom wash can often make it difficult to tell.

A few years ago at the PFMC there was a study about using rubber coated nets. They seem to protect the slime on a fish and enhance the survivability of fish. Coho thrash a lot in a poly net bag while the rubber nets are more stiff so they can't get as tangled.

[Born to be Wild]

Yep! Native Silvers!

This pic I took on a stream survey 2 years ago with ODFW (I volunteered) on Beaver Creek which dumps in to the pacific at Ona Beach near Waldport.

I took this pic in January when the later wild coho are returning and spawning and hatchery coho have already died. There are no hatchey coho stocked in Beaver creek and if you will notice the upper two in the pic, you can see their addipose fins.

BOTTOM TIME DIVER,

I told several local charters and sports fishermen last year (I was excited), that there was a lot of wild coho out there and it looked like there was going to be a good return of these wild coho that winter.

But these "barbershop biologist" tried to tell me the same thing as you have stated, that they were unclipped hatchery fish. I informed them that there are very small percentage of non finclipped hatchery coho anymore. Most of the non finclipped hatchery coho are upper Columbia River tribal fish.

So last winter we had approx. 300,000 wild coho return to the Oregon coastal streams which is the highest numbers in 50 years.

Guess who's smiling and who's hiding in the closet?

The original pic I posted above is 1.5 mb's and I can zoom in on it and put addipose fins on all of the fish in the pic. No fin clips there!

I have personally not seen a fin clipped hatchery fish yet on the stream surveys I have gone on.

If you have any doubts, volunteer to go on a wild coho stream survey this winter as I have done. It's pretty cool seeing all these natural fish doing it on there own! And you will see a lot of them for there are lot's of them out there in the salt this year!

Or you can simply just listen to and pass on the "cafe science".

Dan

[BUGLEMAN]

WDFW has plans for a dehooker on their website.

A large hook,12/0-16/0, with the point and barb removed and rounded, then screwed to a broom handle would work. Gaffs are just handy.

[Born to be Wild]

Thanks Bugleman!

http://www.wa.gov/wdfw/fish/selectiv...ing_salmon.htm

Releasing Salmon Carefully

By carefully releasing salmon, you contribute to the likelihood of improving their survival rate. Several techniques are important to the careful release of salmon. Foremost, please do not remove the fish from the water, and avoid netting the fish whenever possible. Netting a salmon can cause loss of scales and may reduce survival.

Many anglers now use a “de-hooker,” which provides the capability to release fish quickly without handling. De-hookers can be easily made at home with a wood dowel cut to your length of preference. By cutting to a preferred length, the dowel can also serve as a measuring tool while the fish is in the water. Screw a threaded cup hook into the end of the dowel, and follow the four-point outline “Using the de-hooker” shown below.

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helv">There are diagrams and more info on the site.

[ 06-30-2003, 12:52 PM: Message edited by: DepoeBayDan ]

[Born to be Wild]

Pretty cool. They even have a short video showing a fish being released with a "dehooker" in 56k or broadband.

WDFW [img]graemlins/applause.gif[/img]

[Born to be Wild]

9,234 coho released.

7,725 kept as of June 29th.

Even though not all the released coho had adipose fins and not all the adipose finned coho were wild, a biologist said to me yesterday; “I’d be willing to bet that 4 out of 5 are wild fish”.

Lot’s of wild fish out there again this year folks. Good news!

[David Johnson]

I agree with Keta about using a gaff or gaff like tool.

Good post DepoeBayDan.

Also use a very heavy leader, 50 is good, it will allow for easy line handling and less line cuts to the hands when releasing them with a gaff/tool.

[Born to be Wild]

Thanks David and all that contributed.

Today we had the experience of dealing with a few different methods on handling wild coho.

The best by far was using the gaff method (although we didn't have a dehooker aboard).
They continue to be hard to identify in the water even holding the leader on some circumstances.

But when you can identify them, they are easily released by that method.

Best not to get too overly excited and "just do it".

We did see a couple charters net the wild ones and release them after too much handling in our opinions. But at least they weren't slamming them down on the deck prior to releasing.

Some of the coho were brought aboard by just pulling the fish by the leader and over the rail.

If we then could put an addipose fin on them, they went right back in the water via the leader and were de-hooked in the water.

Dan

[Born to be Wild]

I have had the opportunity to practice catch & release on a few ifisher's boats now since I started this thread.

I found it easy to release wild or non fin clipped coho using the gaff method.

Just takes a little practice and it doesn't matter if you loose the wild and wily one in the process. :grin:

I first get ready with the net and wait till I can positively identify whether it has a fin or not.

If I or others spot the fin the net gets put away and out comes the gaff.

Here's a couple post off the community "coyote spoon" thread by myself and others:

I have found it is easy to release the wild ones in the water with a gaff and a dowel with a "cup hook" would probably be easier yet.

Help 'em make it to the spawning beds.

Dan

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helv">Originally posted by willierower:

Dan,
I went to 40lb leader to make it easier to release the wild silvers. I just grab the leader and pull the fishes head out of the water then I use my pliers to pop out the hook.

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Good for you willierower! David Johnson (guide) has mentioned using 40 or 50 pound test for the same reason.

I'm just going to stick with the 20 pound test since it is working for me. I'm sure they are not leader shy out there however.

Try that gaff method. Just slide the gaff down the leader until the gaff gets to the hook and invert ( pull the upper part of the leader above the gaff down and at the same time raise the gaff up). This raises the fish up to where it starts coming out of the water and the hook pulls free. Then you don’t have to bend over and get close to the water (difficult to do on some larger boats) and you don’t have to get your hand close to the hook that’s imbedded in a wily fish.

Works really slick and as I said earlier, a dowel with a screw-in cup holder (hook) would no doubt work even easier.

I’m going to build me one for the next opportunity and try it.

A video of a salmon being released with a “de-hooker” on the WDFW site that only takes a minute to download with 56k or a few seconds with cable. Also instructions on how to build one.

http://www.wa.gov/wdfw/fish/selectiv...ing_salmon.htm

I’m going to see about making my own video of releasing wild coho in the salt with both the gaff method and the de-hooker.

Dan

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By the way willierower,

I found the hardest part of releasing the non fin clipped ones is identifying the fin or lack of in the water.

Sometimes you see what you need to see right a way and sometimes you don't.

Haven't lost a fish yet (hatchery or wild) while trying to identify them though.

I've disciplined myself now and it really doesn't matter and I would rather loose a coho than to net a wild one.

See ya on the Kalama this fall!

Dano

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helv">And of course the original thread:

http://www.ifish.net/cgi-local/ultim...c;f=1;t=026076

[DriftR]

One note of caution. My buddy and I use the gaff technique and have unhooked our fair share of nates over the years. Actually we use that same method when the clipped fish come aboard. Less pain in the hands from sharp hooks. But remember, after getting that barbless hook out and the fish is secured, run you fingers down the leader to inspect for nicks and cuts in your leader from the gaff. Will save you from breaking off a keeper if you catch the problem early. Sometimes just the smallest of nicks can be a real problem.

[Fishrite]

Hey Dan, a big "gold cup hook" screwed into the end of a round piece of wood really works slick. Fishrite