Coho Spinners and Sunshine

[Tightlines667]

I recall participating in field data collection for CA DFG and DWR 40 years ago.  

My team electro-fished Eel River tributaries, concentrating on salmon and steelhead young.  We never collected coho fry in our nets, but documented visual sightings of coho fry and smolts.  The young coho appeared more delicate and were easily distinguishable from young kings and steelhead in natural habitat.  The young coho tended to prefer the less turbulent, but clear side waters of main flows, difficult areas for comparable sampling, compared to the kings and steelhead young.  

So even early in their life cycles, the coho seem to be more delicate and less hardy than the kings.

Nice work!

Coho are cool fish.  They bring back memories of trolling for them on the great lakes as a child, in the 70s.  

I too electrofished for Salmon in the rivers.  My work was for the MNDNR large lakes team in the rivers along Lake Superior's  North Shore.  The learning here definitely improved my fishing success.

John
John

[festus]

This has been an interesting thread.

You would never think my home state (Tennessee) would have salmon, but we actually have cohos and kokanee in the Watauga River.

[happyhooker]

Nice day fishing.

Frank

[gstours]

Another question came to mind,  In the earlier posts of coho release mortality were the cohos troll caught commercially, power or hand troll, or as we might think or do,  sport caught?   That would make a big difference in survival ....?
    Just wondered?       Thanks for a reply.

[Hardy Boy]

gstours: The link I posted was for a study done on recreational caught chinook and coho using different gear and hook configurations in the ocean (not in river). In BC we use a 10 % release mortality for Chinook and coho for salt water and fresh water recreation fisheries (this is the point estimate). For the commercial troll fishery we use a 15 % mortality. If you read that paper the rates varied widely by gear and even by days. If the fish are aggressive and take the lure deep the mortality increases greatly (slow moving cut-plug herring can have a very high mortality rates). A person can use this to determine what fish will likely survive if released. I took part in 4 of these studies and we caught hundreds (it was tough getting paid to fish all day  ) of fish and if there was substantial bleeding or a hook through the eye (from the back) the mortality was almost 100 %. one thing that was interesting is we would have some fish die that were hooked in the outer mouth and upon examination we would find hook wounds down the throat (gills or artery), so the hook moved during the course of the fight. There has been a more recent scientific paper for release mortality that is considering more information (predation, fall offs etc) and may change the way Fisheries and Oceans Canada assigns release mortality instead of using just the point estimate. Of course Alaska and other states may use different release mortality rates. Recent paper:

http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/csas-sccs/Publications/ResDocs-DocRech/2017/2017_011-eng.pdf

Its winter soon so print off a copy and sit by the wood stove and have a read.

PS: those two coho smoked up real good plus a nice fresh feed on the grill.

[gstours]

Thanks for the added information.  Salmon are good for you,  and very therapeutic.   Like gardening,  most people take the easy way out and become disconnected from their sources.   I eat to live, and live to fish.   We all can do our part to be responsible stewards of these valuable resources.    This forum is great.   Thanks for adding your posts.
    Keep sending the great pictures as you dig them out of the files.    Especially the ones with the set tablecloth pick niks.     Wow.