Is CnR a management tool to help preserve certain stocks of fish while still giving the public a recreational opportunity?
Sometimes C&R sections on rivers are designed to provide areas where the fish have a chance to grow larger and perhaps smarter.
A little more…
In the PNW there are a fair number of endangered stocks of salmon and steelhead yet we are allowed to fish for some of these stocks during what is billed as Catch and Release seasons. Are the fish and game agencies responsible for these fish just giving the public a fishing opportunity while still protecting the fish? Or, are they doing this to sell more fishing licenses? Or?
There is a lake near here that was made a C&R only lake. The reason is that it is spring fed and has virtually no winter kill. Because the trout survive the winter they grow quite large. You can go there and catch rainbows up to 6 pounds with fair sucess.
In nearby lakes of the same size and altitude it is all put and take because the winter kills are nearly 100%
C&R in winterkill lakes makes no sense to me.
Slot limits may do better than true catch and release.
This is what the Kenai river in Alaska has, any rainbow or dolly under 16 is fair game 1 per day. Their isnt many under 16inches 
Slot limits are working fine for sturgeon. SL’s are a management tool, C&R is a personal decision and it also applies as a rule, sometimes for only part of the year.
Doug
C&R would seem to be an effective tool for confined resident populations of fish. I DO think we would be hard pressed to change an anadromous fishery’s population with a string and a wad of feathers, a chunk of plastic, or a gob of guts though…or at least one would have to be FAR more effective that I at doing it.
…lee s.
there are those that will argue that any population of fish that cannot support a harvest fishery should not be fished at all.
we have a fall C&R fishery in Newfoundland for Atlantic Salmon at the tail end of the summer retention fishery. To my knowledge, the soul purpose of this fishery is to allow the fish to remain in the system and return to the ocean, yet still allow salmon anglers to practise the sport during the remaining good weather. However, voluntary C&R is gaining popularity around here. There is no C&R fishery for trout here, though. It’s purely retention or nothing (although, again, voluntary C&R is catching on)
Kerry…in my very limited field of vision, no matter where C&R regulations are implemented,(mine being trout) most are there for the betterment of the species! With harvest in most of the waters I frequent,they could not sustain the present quality without restocking programs & possibly introducing an inferior quality of game fish. Most of the C&R waters I fish, the native populations are thriving. Were the old harvest rules allowed on these waters, again, then the pressure & subsequent harvest by more & more folks, would soon be a detriment to most of these fisheries. We have to face the fact that our fisheries need to be managed as much for the sake of the species as for the enjoyment of the fisherman !!
Again, I only speak from my time spent on such waters & also from having been there before the C&R programs were instituted & the results were more than favorable !
This is what I am driving at. But, I wonder if some C&R season are not instituted to keep the sale of fishing licenses going. Also to some there is a moral issue here; playing with the fish for the sake of ones personal enjoyment.
“there are those that will argue that any population of fish that cannot support a harvest fishery should not be fished at all.”
Kerry,
I agree with what you say…there are those…
However to promote abstinence of fishing as a means of RESTORING a fishery, especially an anadromous fishery, is ludricrist at best. And for us, as free thinking and LOGICAL thinkers, to accept this theory seems somewhat less than intelligent at best.
There is a run of king salmon that has established itself in the Russian River here locally, where only silvers and steelhead were historically native. These fish have done so WHILE C&R fishing has been legal and practiced, even during low water closures enforced locally on other waters. The silvers and steelhead are in dire trouble as we speak. NOT from stick and string mortality, but from habitat degradation in some of it’s most horrible forms…siltation and chemical pollution that, even without advanced schooling, an OLD EYEtalian can see eminates from watershed vineyards.
To allow the “powers that be” to promote this farse of “no fishing/more fish” to be the key to anadromous fish restoration is criminal in and of itself.
Remeber…somebody HAS to replace the now starved out bear…as best we can!
IF we no longer fish them, they (the fish) have lost their LAST friendly witness!
…lee s.
Lee,
You are assuming that those that say a fishiery that cannot sustain a harvest fishery are also saying that sport fishing is the reason the fishery is so depressed. I did not say that nor did I say that closing a fishery to sport fishing whether it be catch and release or harvest was the sole solution to rebuilding the run. Many that say if it cannnot support harvest it should be closed to all fishing are also advocates of habitat restoration.