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32 °F Forecast | Road Cams Sunday, November 28, 2004 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Menu Guide How To Guide Wellness Connection Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Passport to the Rogue Valley EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People MARKETPLACE Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Classifieds Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend July 15, 2004 Conservation strategy leads to hooking mortality for wild chinook By MARK FREEMAN Mail Tribune It was the best of days and the worst of days for Russ Batzer and Dale Lininger as they mined the upper Rogue River on Monday for spring chinook salmon. The duo quickly caught their two wild fish allowed under the upper Rogue’s limit of one wild spring chinook a day and no more than three a season. They added a hatchery fish as well, then started releasing wild fish after wild fish in search of that last hatchery fish that never materialized. "The biggest one was 30 pounds, and we had to release it," Batzer says. "That was kind of bittersweet. But, hey, we thought we’d be lucky just to catch one or two." If the law allowed them two wild spring chinook as in the past, they would have quit earlier with their limits. They also would have spared at least three wild chinook from getting hooked and released — an act that could lead to the salmon’s death from stress and injury. "That was a fantastic day on the river, my best of the season," says Jim Dunlevy, Batzer’s guide Monday. "But at the same time, it was a bummer releasing fish knowing they were exhausted and not knowing if they were going to live or not." Advertisement Over the next two weeks, Dunlevy and the rest of the upper Rogue angling world will face even more of what has become the part of the current wild spring chinook conservation strategy that is the most troubling for anglers. It’s the releasing of big, tough-to-catch spring chinook to comply with the new bag limit, yet knowing many of those released fish will die from the stress and the struggle at anglers’ hands. To some, it’s a rule as uncompromisingly Victorian as a Dickens villain. "The more fish you hook, the more fish you’re killing," says Eagle Point river guide Mike Jackson. "You’re killing them, and you’re letting them float down the river. "I saw two of them float by me the other day and I know they were the fish some guys upstream just caught and let go," Jackson says. "It’s hideous." And it’s only going to get worse. A combination of natural and artificial factors make the last two weeks in July the most likely time for catch-and-release mortality for upper Rogue spring chinook. First, late July brings a spurt of wild chinook over Gold Ray Dam, so catches of wild chinook tend to spike as the early-run hatchery fish race into Cole Rivers Hatchery by the hundreds. Second, upper Rogue water conditions are the lowest and warmest — and thus, most marginal — for chinook now through the season’s July 31 ending than at any time during the spring chinook season here. And lastly, more anglers have used their three-fish limit while continuing to target hatchery spring chinook while they can. These conditions all point to a wide range of possibilities for hooking mortality on wild spring chinook over the next two weeks. "Given they could be hooked multiple times and given anything over Gold Ray Dam before Aug. 15 is a spring chinook, it could be (a hooking mortality of) 10 to 60 percent," says Tom Satterthwaite, an Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife research biologist who has worked on the Rogue for more than two decades. "Anything inside of that range wouldn’t surprise me." The difference between 10 percent and 60 percent, Satterthwaite and others say, lies in how well anglers treat the fish they release. By using larger bait hooks and shying away from trebled-hooked plugs, more fish-friendly nets and reviving the fish properly without inflicting further damage, anglers can help more released salmon survive. "It’s not really an issue for the guides," Jackson says. "We all know how to handle fish. It’s the bank anglers and the weekend fishermen who will have some problems." The only good news in these piles of problems is that the majority of the wild chinook that are dying from hooking mortality are not the ones targeted for protection. Most of the wild chinook heading into the upper Rogue now are late-run "spralls," a cluster of salmon that are not quite spring chinook and not quite fall chinook. These are a segment of the run that has ballooned since releases of stored Lost Creek Lake water helped improve mid-summer runs of salmon into the Rogue Valley. These are different from the early-run, early-spawning spring chinook whose numbers are so depressed now that it prompted the catch-and-release regulation. However, the spralls and the early-run springers now sit fin-to-fin in upper Rogue holes waiting to spawn, and anglers’ hooks can’t tell the difference. "There’s no way to separate them up there," says Russ Stauff, the ODFW’s Rogue District fish biologist. "The hooking mortality may be high and there’s going to be some frustration. "But if you bat them over the head, the mortality rate is pretty much going to be 100 percent," Stauff says. The ironic thing is, the one-and-three rule isn’t expected actually to save an appreciative number of wild spring chinook. Statistically, angling successes like Batzer and Lininger had Monday are rare on the Rogue. Stauff says the vast majority of Rogue anglers don’t catch enough early-run wild spring chinook to make the so-called "one and three rule" come into play very often. Historically, anglers were as willing to release a legally caught chinook as they would give away their best bird dog. But the new rules are part of an interim strategy to introduce anglers to the practice while the ODFW and the angling public embarks on a conservation plan that digs deeper into the issues and likely will result in different rules. "It’s really more of a social segue, a way to broach the idea of releasing (chinook)," Stauff says. In the meantime, anglers lucky enough to have big days like Batzer will have to accept that more spring chinook could be released than kept some days. "It doesn’t get much better than that," Batzer says. "My arms were sore, but I didn’t have much to show for it." Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2004 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions Website Feedback ADVERTISERS A D V E R T I S E R S SPECIAL SECTIONS Auto Finder Job Finder Home Finder Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Tempo Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Moving to Southern Oregon? Volunteer Opportunities