Challenging our assumptions about catch and release
December 2, 2024
By: David Mills
New research makes clear that fewer encounters with anglers in the marine environment will be better for wild salmon
Everyday anglers from British Columbia want a vibrant and sustainable fishery. Not only because it’s a huge part of our identity and culture–we also want healthy food for our families that we can take pride in catching ourselves. Over the decades, limits on recreational angling have been adjusted in accordance to abundance. With few exceptions, those adjustments have been restrictive. Hatchery production of chinook and coho both here and in Washington State was meant to reverse that trend, but added further complications. It turns out hatcheries often do more harm than good. One big problem is that these newly abundant hatchery fish swim alongside wild populations, which in many cases are struggling to hang on or recover.
Fisheries advisor David Mills
In response, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) added new size restrictions and the requirement to release wild fish. In the years that followed, recreational fisheries grew again.
However, in new fisheries driven by hatchery production, hundreds of thousands of fish are now thrown back every year. Estimates used by fishery managers on the mortality for released wild salmon have been contentious, and thought by many to be too low. This led to independent scientists receiving funding to undertake a modern study of the impacts of marine recreational fisheries on coho and chinook. The results confirm our suspicions.
As someone who feeds my family from the bounty of our seas, I follow my fishing license regulations. However, it’s been viscerally painful to release wild wounded fish, or fish that are too small. This latest science supports what many of us are feeling in our gut: the cornerstone regulation of recreational angling—the requirement to release wild fish in ‘mark-selective’ fisheries—is likely killing more wild salmon than it is protecting.
Chinook salmon
Mark-Selective Fisheries
The intention of mark (and size) selective fisheries is for anglers to catch salmon raised in a hatchery. The ‘mark’ that identifies a hatchery fish is a healed scar where the fish’s clipped adipose fin should be. In mark-selective fisheries, anglers are required to release wild fish so they may successfully spawn, allowing depleted populations to rebuild. However, there are few ways to target hatchery fish in isolation since they swim alongside wild fish. And while post-release mortality rates can be low under some circumstances, given that hundreds of thousands of salmon are released annually, a very large number die.
These latest studies and the resulting report were funded through the B.C. Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund and conducted by UBC’s Pacific Salmon Ecology and Conservation Laboratory, with the support of the sport fishing industry, the Pacific Salmon Foundation, and government partners. They clarify that short-term mortality rates in recreational marine fisheries are far higher than what DFO accounts for in its fishery planning. One of these recent studies found 31.5 per cent of coho caught and released by recreational anglers died within 50 kilometres of release. *
The Bad News
This is tough news for fishing lodges and charter operators who are enthusiastic supporters of mark-selective fisheries where taxpayers produce a lot of hatchery fish for their clients who enjoy the excitement of catching, playing, and releasing fish until they get their limit of keepers. It’s also bad news for DFO managers who have been rolling out mark-selective fisheries before the science is complete.
Expanding mark-selective fisheries tacks against the winds of a potential solution, which would be to limit encounters. Limiting encounters reduces mortality on the wild salmon populations we are trying to rebuild.
For its part, the Sport Fishing Institute built a new “release them right” website, and funds persistent ads appearing on social media, instructing anglers to modify familiar fish handling practices in order to improve the survival of released fish. These and other efforts to get better fish handling information to anglers are valued outcomes from these studies. While reality checks on the type of gear being sold are long overdue, re-examining the sustainability of large-scale mark-selective fisheries should also be on the table. Fishing lodges and guides would likely frown on anything limiting the number of fish their clients catch, but if fishing is about anything, it’s about managing expectations.
A fish about to be released with wounds that could be fatal
Myth vs Reality
I’ve experienced many days food-fishing on the boat where we released a dozen fish that were too small, and occasionally too big, keeping none. These new efforts to better quantify release mortality estimate that too many released sub-legal chinook do not survive. My personal experience bears this out, and social media and forum posts from other anglers tell a similar story.
Using the three-year average, the South Coast recreational fishery is releasing 216,000 chinook per year, and keeping 152,000. If we apply mortality rates similar to the above, we can estimate roughly 75,000 smaller fish die soon after. This feels like resource mismanagement. The anglers I fish with would be more than happy to assign any of those smaller fish to our limit, and stop fishing. However, catch-and-release regulations prevent what many would consider a more ethical and conservation-oriented way to fish.
And then there is the larger question of public interest. If the trawl fleet tossed overboard 75,000 dead chinook, outrage would follow. But it’s okay for us recreational fishers to do it? As a participant in these fisheries, I’m very uncomfortable with it.
Is it Time to Stop Releasing Salmon?
There’s no doubt that most people hope for big salmon when they fish. But for many tourists (and plenty of locals) the biggest draw is the expansiveness of the experience. On my last fishing trip this season, we spent a half hour drifting silently as humpbacks steamed by, and two orca families taught their young to chase prey. I saw a lot of anglers put down their rods and pick up their cameras. A healthy and productive environment is the magic ingredient in the fishing experience, and right now, for many reasons, that environment is full of smaller salmon. If you are going to drag a small chinook attached to a flasher up from 240 feet, the ethical thing to do is to kill it and count it towards your limit. Releasing that fish knowing full well it will be rotting on the bottom in a few hours or days, is not.
The new UBC studies emphasize we can do a lot to reduce mortality. With their permission, we’ve published their recommendations on our website. Please read them if you fish for salmon, as there is important new information that will help you reduce your impact on any fish you release. And it’s not all bad news. If handled properly, larger chinook do very well, so we can continue to release them and help increase the number of large mature fish returning to spawn.
That said, the cold hard truth is that fewer wild fish will die if anglers keep the salmon they catch, assign them to their daily and seasonal limit, then cease fishing when they reach it. In that light, DFO should rethink its approach to mark-selective fisheries, change recreational angling and gear regulations, and reallocate resources into monitoring and enforcement. If we limit recreational fishing encounters, anglers can still pursue the salmon they need. With many thousands more wild chinook and coho surviving to spawn each year, overall abundance should improve. This is good for the fish, good for the fishery, and in the public interest.
*https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165783624001267
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Challenging our assumptions about catch and release
December 2, 2024
By: David Mills
New research makes clear that fewer encounters with anglers in the marine environment will be better for wild salmon
Everyday anglers from British Columbia want a vibrant and sustainable fishery. Not only because it’s a huge part of our identity and culture–we also want healthy food for our families that we can take pride in catching ourselves. Over the decades, limits on recreational angling have been adjusted in accordance to abundance. With few exceptions, those adjustments have been restrictive. Hatchery production of chinook and coho both here and in Washington State was meant to reverse that trend, but added further complications. It turns out hatcheries often do more harm than good. One big problem is that these newly abundant hatchery fish swim alongside wild populations, which in many cases are struggling to hang on or recover.
Fisheries advisor David Mills
In response, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) added new size restrictions and the requirement to release wild fish. In the years that followed, recreational fisheries grew again.
However, in new fisheries driven by hatchery production, hundreds of thousands of fish are now thrown back every year. Estimates used by fishery managers on the mortality for released wild salmon have been contentious, and thought by many to be too low. This led to independent scientists receiving funding to undertake a modern study of the impacts of marine recreational fisheries on coho and chinook. The results confirm our suspicions.
As someone who feeds my family from the bounty of our seas, I follow my fishing license regulations. However, it’s been viscerally painful to release wild wounded fish, or fish that are too small. This latest science supports what many of us are feeling in our gut: the cornerstone regulation of recreational angling—the requirement to release wild fish in ‘mark-selective’ fisheries—is likely killing more wild salmon than it is protecting.
Chinook salmon
Mark-Selective Fisheries
The intention of mark (and size) selective fisheries is for anglers to catch salmon raised in a hatchery. The ‘mark’ that identifies a hatchery fish is a healed scar where the fish’s clipped adipose fin should be. In mark-selective fisheries, anglers are required to release wild fish so they may successfully spawn, allowing depleted populations to rebuild. However, there are few ways to target hatchery fish in isolation since they swim alongside wild fish. And while post-release mortality rates can be low under some circumstances, given that hundreds of thousands of salmon are released annually, a very large number die.
These latest studies and the resulting report were funded through the B.C. Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund and conducted by UBC’s Pacific Salmon Ecology and Conservation Laboratory, with the support of the sport fishing industry, the Pacific Salmon Foundation, and government partners. They clarify that short-term mortality rates in recreational marine fisheries are far higher than what DFO accounts for in its fishery planning. One of these recent studies found 31.5 per cent of coho caught and released by recreational anglers died within 50 kilometres of release. *
The Bad News
This is tough news for fishing lodges and charter operators who are enthusiastic supporters of mark-selective fisheries where taxpayers produce a lot of hatchery fish for their clients who enjoy the excitement of catching, playing, and releasing fish until they get their limit of keepers. It’s also bad news for DFO managers who have been rolling out mark-selective fisheries before the science is complete.
Expanding mark-selective fisheries tacks against the winds of a potential solution, which would be to limit encounters. Limiting encounters reduces mortality on the wild salmon populations we are trying to rebuild.
For its part, the Sport Fishing Institute built a new “release them right” website, and funds persistent ads appearing on social media, instructing anglers to modify familiar fish handling practices in order to improve the survival of released fish. These and other efforts to get better fish handling information to anglers are valued outcomes from these studies. While reality checks on the type of gear being sold are long overdue, re-examining the sustainability of large-scale mark-selective fisheries should also be on the table. Fishing lodges and guides would likely frown on anything limiting the number of fish their clients catch, but if fishing is about anything, it’s about managing expectations.
A fish about to be released with wounds that could be fatal
Myth vs Reality
I’ve experienced many days food-fishing on the boat where we released a dozen fish that were too small, and occasionally too big, keeping none. These new efforts to better quantify release mortality estimate that too many released sub-legal chinook do not survive. My personal experience bears this out, and social media and forum posts from other anglers tell a similar story.
Using the three-year average, the South Coast recreational fishery is releasing 216,000 chinook per year, and keeping 152,000. If we apply mortality rates similar to the above, we can estimate roughly 75,000 smaller fish die soon after. This feels like resource mismanagement. The anglers I fish with would be more than happy to assign any of those smaller fish to our limit, and stop fishing. However, catch-and-release regulations prevent what many would consider a more ethical and conservation-oriented way to fish.
And then there is the larger question of public interest. If the trawl fleet tossed overboard 75,000 dead chinook, outrage would follow. But it’s okay for us recreational fishers to do it? As a participant in these fisheries, I’m very uncomfortable with it.
Is it Time to Stop Releasing Salmon?
There’s no doubt that most people hope for big salmon when they fish. But for many tourists (and plenty of locals) the biggest draw is the expansiveness of the experience. On my last fishing trip this season, we spent a half hour drifting silently as humpbacks steamed by, and two orca families taught their young to chase prey. I saw a lot of anglers put down their rods and pick up their cameras. A healthy and productive environment is the magic ingredient in the fishing experience, and right now, for many reasons, that environment is full of smaller salmon. If you are going to drag a small chinook attached to a flasher up from 240 feet, the ethical thing to do is to kill it and count it towards your limit. Releasing that fish knowing full well it will be rotting on the bottom in a few hours or days, is not.
The new UBC studies emphasize we can do a lot to reduce mortality. With their permission, we’ve published their recommendations on our website. Please read them if you fish for salmon, as there is important new information that will help you reduce your impact on any fish you release. And it’s not all bad news. If handled properly, larger chinook do very well, so we can continue to release them and help increase the number of large mature fish returning to spawn.
That said, the cold hard truth is that fewer wild fish will die if anglers keep the salmon they catch, assign them to their daily and seasonal limit, then cease fishing when they reach it. In that light, DFO should rethink its approach to mark-selective fisheries, change recreational angling and gear regulations, and reallocate resources into monitoring and enforcement. If we limit recreational fishing encounters, anglers can still pursue the salmon they need. With many thousands more wild chinook and coho surviving to spawn each year, overall abundance should improve. This is good for the fish, good for the fishery, and in the public interest.
*https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165783624001267
I am a retired commercial salmon fisherman. After many years I decided to try sports fishing salmon. I installed the downriggers that I bought years ago and went out on the 2024 opening for wild chinook in the Sechelt area. On opening day in 2 hours fishing I got one legal chinook, 2 undersized chinook and 5 wild coho which I had to shake. Went out again several more times and had similar experiences. I did not find this enjoyable and may not go again. We should keep the fish we catch, whether they are undersized, wild or not and then go in. I think 30% mortality is probably low. Those fiesty fish when released are loaded with the stress hormone and go into shock , often to be eaten by seals. There is tremendous pressure on DFO to not limit recreational fisheries sometimes to the detriment of conservation objectives. There are a lot of recreational anglers and they vote.
Washington State has a law stating that all releases must be “water line”. i.e. no handling in the boat, holding too long to take pictures. I agree with keeping the first 2 fish one catches and go in. Stories of guides releasing up to 50 fish in one day would be over.
On the other hand to put all this in perspective, seals and sea lions consume over 50,000,000 ( you read that correctly) outbound chinook, coho and steelhead smolts annually.
There is no science on the consumption of returning adults in B.C due to the ineptness of DFO.
In prior years the pinniped populations in the Gulf of Georgia combined were aprox. 75,000. Do the math at consuming 1 adult salmon/pinniped /week. Studies on the Columbia show that the in river sea lions consume 3 to 5 adult returning chinook/lion/day.
The good news is that the pinnipeds have all but disappeared in the Gulf and the returns of spawners and increased. The 10 year average returns of chinook to the South Thompson has been 225,000. With the seals all but gone, the returns last year by DFO count were 627,000. From flyover videos sent to me by DFO, it looks like the returns will be even larger than last year. The Cowichan set a record of 16,000 this year. The low was 250 some years ago.
I appreciate the work done by this group, but am sceptical of the survival numbers
Regards: Ken Pearce chair of PACIFIC BALANCE PINNIPED SOCIETY
This is an excellent article Dave. One thing that is not often considered when it comes to the discussion of recreational fishing impacts is the proportion of hooked fish that are taken off the line by pinnipeds or predated upon soon after release. Research suggests both can be high in certain times and areas. Hence, reducing the amount of time anglers spend on the water, by management actions such as what you are suggesting, may be helpful in reducing these fishing related impacts.
Of course, enforcing compliance with such measures could be a nightmare. My experience with compliance with fishing regulations is that it is similar to highway speeds. If effective monitoring and enforcement is not present, individuals will exceed the speed limit. Soon, others will say, ‘if she can, why shouldn’t I?” The result is the majority of people are quickly exceeding the posted speed limit.
Maybe one way to enforce compliance is to use the same way humans tend to influence each other’s behaviour in reverse. In this case, instead of naively expecting Conservation and Protection to monitor and enforce compliance (which they do not have the mandate, resources, or manpower to do), managers should work with reference fisheries, guardians, and responsible anglers to monitor sub-areas, and identify those sub-areas with with poor compliance with your proposed regulations, and threaten to shut them down. My experience is fishers are the fiercest protectors of their fishery and will lean on any participant who threatens their ability to fish.
Looking to governments (and especially DFO) to solve these types of problems is a mistake. Instead, we should structure incentives to influence behaviors to achieve the desired outcomes.