serious steelhead safety tips and prevention of death

[DAVID95670]

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


Read it . Be careful.

[jbird]

"They determined that the least intrusive way to capture the fish was, well, the same way we do it. With a fly rod."

"The flopping fish simply hit their heads on a rock"

This was where the reading ended for me.

[Jeff F]

Yeah, I can see the head-banging thing. But what I'm really interested in, and always have been is the GPS thing they mention.

I've always wondered why we hear so little about where adult fish go when they LEAVE the river back to the ocean. Do they travel in schools, or do they hang out with salmon, in-shore, near estuaries, etc, etc.? Seems like there should be some data and GIS satellite mapping of where the steelhead hang out when they're back in the salt. I've heard of incidental nettings of steelhead from commercial salmon fisherman, so that leads me to believe that they might be swimming among their salmon cousins.

Anybody know?

[Blueracer]

Jay I hear ya. Don't you think after running a marathon and then sitting in slack water with low levels of oxygen and maybe even being taken out of the water for a brief period would be more likely to cause the brain trauma due to lack of oxygen the same way all creatures end up with brain damage due to oxygen depreciation?

[jbird]

I just laugh every time a "new study" surfaces on this topic. They always go after anglers as "the cause" because we're easy targets with a concience. They want us to believe steelhead are fragile as wet tissue paper. Thats just so naive. These things are tough as nails! They have to be to do what they do. you want to point a finger at anyone, how about competitive bass anglers that parade their fish on a stage in laundry baskets. They arent designed to migrate thru class 5 rapids, jump waterfalls and pinball off rocks, yet theyre tough enough to be treated like that?? (Granted their numbers arent declining but this is a handling issue) but OH NO! Dont even fish for steelhead! Cause simply catching and releasing them may be killing them. LOL I cant help but think some of these studies are done by garden variety steelhead addicts and theyre just acting like it.
Now clear the way as I step down from me soap box! hehe

[Dan Harrison]

Agree Jbird, this was put up on Dan Blanton's board as well. There was a lot of septics there as well. You really can't believe much of what you read on these studies. Too many variables, that said we handle our steelhead kindly regardless. I love to see them swim away happy.

[JasonB]

Jay, one small point of clarification: had you read a bit further into the article, it was made clear that this was NOT a "study" of any sort. It was more along the lines of an accidental "discovery", that was incidental to the work that they were doing. There are a lot of questions about the "discovery" of theirs, and how many other variables were part of the problem is impossible to say given how little information is available. The article itself isn't really that well presented, and in the end doesn't present any solid data. Totally agreed that there are FAR more critical issues that face steelhead, but it is us anglers who do have some simple choices in how much of a role we play in the picture.
As hyped up as the discussion raised in the article, I do think it's a good thing to remind all anglers of. You would think that it would be intuitive for all anglers who intend to release fish to not drag fish up onto shore, watch them thrash about against the rocks, cary them around out of water for photos, etc, etc, etc... but then again we know that it is not. Perhaps there should be a study on the impacts of "Go-pro" cameras and Youtube, lol. Other than that, it's still worth a read and a pretty small effort to minimize the potential issues brought up.
JB

[Frank Alessio]

You guys are on the right track...We need to kill our limit and go home....And do it again tomorrow....catch and release is crule and unusual punishment...DFW would not set Kill limits if they did not expect us to Kill Limits...and they have the studies to back it up... Steelhead punch cards....

[Darian]

;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) Good one Frank.... :cool:

[the_gnarwhale]

Reading most of Frank's posts is cruel and unusual.