Thread: Salmon

well I do know that 34 years ago when I first came to Timaru...at certain times of the year,smaller salmon were being caught from the wharves in town....happened in Dunedin too... doesnt happen anymore...the run of hatchery released/bred fish just isnt there anymore to be caught.
had an early fishing magazine with huge catch limits ...the ashburton river at one point has traps in it to kill off the trout for benifit of the salmon... oh how times change.Ive only caught one river run salmon and that was just below the opuha dam weir..on 5lb nylon and a yellow veltic spinner while after trout...it had got as far upstream as it could go.... the Waitaki river doesnt have the same uninterupted flow from mountains to the sea anymore. but we all like to have light and hot water at flick of switch or turn of tap...progress=change,some good some bad and some ugly.

Originally Posted by Joe Schmo

Super true on the density issue of H vs W sore head

I reckon the other side of the coin is that hatchery fish have been packed into a raceway and only know... "food" "pellet" movement above..."food" "pellet" so they ain't exactly street smart
However wild fish are dodging and weaving and hunting from the day they're born so they're tough...however they're also usually smaller.
There's a gigantic (several million tagged) study that looks at whether it's better to transport fish to the ocean (estuary), thus avoiding predation, or let them travel in the river and tough it out and learn and have the weak ones picked off...turns out yes it's better for overall smolt survival to transport em and yes run of the river fish survive better to adults. Classic Catch22, laterally depends on what time (day) of year they are transported, river flow, etc.

To get back to the subject...I can't imagine catching a chinook 100m from the salt as y'all do here!! They're BEAUTIFUL!!!

You could be right. From memory the salmon smolt I saw released were quite small, 2 inches in length. All were about that size give or take

I’ve met more people than a bull can shit that have “pronounced “ an affirmation that they have salmon at there heart… and then said:::,they take the data with a grain of salt etc etc….Really???… they know more???… with “his” resources and go there??… I don’t give a shit weather he’s a good cunt….or not…. I’ve fished the same rivers .. taken plenty of salmon and still do…

The fact is these agencies ,with limited resources,are trying to replenish the stocks through a programme that is having to deal with a lot of issues.. most in todays world are insurmountable… I’ve seen fishermen disregard all laws regarding the taking of “legal” salmon based upon the season…

The dam blocking of the Columbia and many other rivers has changed the dynamics of many issues relating to salmon…. The measure of success is if we all abide by what we know and do…. Not a grain of salt because if these fishermen were worth there salt then they would be in charge..period!!

well there is one less "fisherman disreguarding laws" in this district as of last season.......
you can hardly call setting a gill net across river mouth during wee small hours either sporting or ethical...and NO the person involved wasnt of native decent either...but I guess you could say the fishes had the last laugh considering how it ended up.
yip thats callous and shows little compassion......but as Forest Gump said when stepped in pile of steaming doggy doodooh "it happens"
poetic justice some might say.

Ocean conditions are such a major player. It's not that ocean conditions get overlooked but it's still amazing to think of all the work we do for salmon(ids) in the freshwater system when they spend 70-80ish percent of their lives in the salt. Not that there isn't work done in the salt but it's a small percentage of the total work for sure.

Not salt related. This has always been a sweet salmon graphic for me...the inverse relationship between the number of fish and survival of fish. Again the Catch-22...more fish/lower survival/smaller fish vs fewer fish/higher survival/bigger fish. Cool snapshot either way.