The story of catch and release intertwines science, culture, and our relationship with the natural world.
Readers of Watershed Watch are typically aware of two key things: A) our deep affection for salmon, their aquatic relatives, and the watersheds they enrich, driving an incredible cycle of renewal across British Columbia. B) Our admiration for ‘salmon people’—the hundreds of thousands of British Columbians who, like us, believe that our home and cultures would be incomplete without these fish.
We also recognize that not all ‘salmon people’ hold identical views at all times, which is why we strive to prioritize science. But often, science and culture don’t speak the same language, and we end up talking past each other; so I’m going to try and weave both into this story about catch and release. Because the one thing I have absolutely no doubt about, is that communicating about the things we care about is how we find the common ground, and common ground is the best place to build solutions.
The story of catch and release intertwines science, culture, and our relationship with the natural world.
Readers of Watershed Watch are typically aware of two key things: A) our deep affection for salmon, their aquatic relatives, and the watersheds they enrich, driving an incredible cycle of renewal across British Columbia. B) Our admiration for ‘salmon people’—the hundreds of thousands of British Columbians who, like us, believe that our home and cultures would be incomplete without these fish.
We also recognize that not all ‘salmon people’ hold identical views at all times, which is why we strive to prioritize science. But often, science and culture don’t speak the same language, and we end up talking past each other; so I’m going to try and weave both into this story about catch and release. Because the one thing I have absolutely no doubt about, is that communicating about the things we care about is how we find the common ground, and common ground is the best place to build solutions.
Different Perspectives on Releasing Fish
Different Perspectives on Releasing Fish
Let’s begin with a simple truth: The benefits of releasing captured fish is dependent on the released fish being able to complete their migration and successfully reproduce. Thanks to highly capable, dedicated, well-funded, and professional researchers, we now know that far more salmon do not survive to successfully reproduce than we previously thought.
I believe those of us who fish are mostly aware of this. Regardless of which method is used by recreational anglers, once hooked, “fish experience elevated stress and exhaustion as they attempt to escape.”(1) If a fish is visibly bleeding, the observed mortality ranges from 26-45 per cent. The use of landing nets contributes to scale loss and significantly more air exposure. Furthermore, if a salmon is caught in warmer water, has recently entered an estuary, has an eye injury, or is female; its chances of successfully spawning decreases rapidly, sometimes to near zero.
The good news is that anglers are generally receptive to applying new conservation measures if there is evidence that they help salmon.(2) Last year, the research team at UBC’s Pacific Salmon Ecology and Conservation Laboratory paired their research on what exacerbates release mortality, with improved gear and handling recommendations that minimize it. We listed these on our website, but I want to emphasize three that should be repeated as often as possible:
- Use one smaller hook. Tandem hooks increase the likelihood of eye or gill punctures. Larger hooks cause severe injuries, and wider gap widths increase the probability of eye injury. Both dramatically decrease the survival of released fish.
- Do not use a flasher. Forcing fish to swim against the drag of a flasher is akin to asking a person to sprint with an open umbrella. Flashers lead to exhausted fish that lack the capacity to escape natural predators when released. The UBC team found that full metabolic recovery takes hours. Flashers take the “sport” out of “sportfishing,” in case that is still your frame of reference. Personally, I have not used a flasher once this year—and have caught both chinook and coho at a similar rate to last year.
- Avoid using landing nets that split fins. Learning how to fish without a net was entirely new information to me, but it makes sense. Salmon are powerful creatures that channel all their energy into a delicate, fan-like propulsion system at the tail end of their bodies. They use their fins to execute high-speed changes in direction. When taken out of the water, numerous new forces are applied to these delicate structures, causing them to break. A good landing net analogy for us would be taking us off the track, spraining or breaking several toes, submerging our head underwater for 40 seconds, scraping our skin, then putting us back out on the oval and expecting us to keep sprinting. I appreciate that for new (or aging) anglers, in difficult weather, or other situations (e.g., a sea lion in hot pursuit), waterline releases are not often practical. In such cases, opt for a rubber net with a small diameter mesh; it will cause less damage to fins and scales. If possible, keep salmon in the water while using it so they can breathe.
Let’s begin with a simple truth: The benefits of releasing captured fish is dependent on the released fish being able to complete their migration and successfully reproduce. Thanks to highly capable, dedicated, well-funded, and professional researchers, we now know that far more salmon do not survive to successfully reproduce than we previously thought.
I believe those of us who fish are mostly aware of this. Regardless of which method is used by recreational anglers, once hooked, “fish experience elevated stress and exhaustion as they attempt to escape.”(1) If a fish is visibly bleeding, the observed mortality ranges from 26-45 per cent. The use of landing nets contributes to scale loss and significantly more air exposure. Furthermore, if a salmon is caught in warmer water, has recently entered an estuary, has an eye injury, or is female; its chances of successfully spawning decreases rapidly, sometimes to near zero.
The good news is that anglers are generally receptive to applying new conservation measures if there is evidence that they help salmon.(2) Last year, the research team at UBC’s Pacific Salmon Ecology and Conservation Laboratory paired their research on what exacerbates release mortality, with improved gear and handling recommendations that minimize it. We listed these on our website, but I want to emphasize three that should be repeated as often as possible:
- Use one smaller hook. Tandem hooks increase the likelihood of eye or gill punctures. Larger hooks cause severe injuries, and wider gap widths increase the probability of eye injury. Both dramatically decrease the survival of released fish.
- Do not use a flasher. Forcing fish to swim against the drag of a flasher is akin to asking a person to sprint with an open umbrella. Flashers lead to exhausted fish that lack the capacity to escape natural predators when released. The UBC team found that full metabolic recovery takes hours. Flashers take the “sport” out of “sportfishing,” in case that is still your frame of reference. Personally, I have not used a flasher once this year—and have caught both chinook and coho at a similar rate to last year.
- Avoid using landing nets that split fins. Learning how to fish without a net was entirely new information to me, but it makes sense. Salmon are powerful creatures that channel all their energy into a delicate, fan-like propulsion system at the tail end of their bodies. They use their fins to execute high-speed changes in direction. When taken out of the water, numerous new forces are applied to these delicate structures, causing them to break. A good landing net analogy for us would be taking us off the track, spraining or breaking several toes, submerging our head underwater for 40 seconds, scraping our skin, then putting us back out on the oval and expecting us to keep sprinting. I appreciate that for new (or aging) anglers, in difficult weather, or other situations (e.g., a sea lion in hot pursuit), waterline releases are not often practical. In such cases, opt for a rubber net with a small diameter mesh; it will cause less damage to fins and scales. If possible, keep salmon in the water while using it so they can breathe.
More Salmon, More Effort
Improving salmon returns to many areas on the South Coast is indeed good news for anglers. The Salish Sea has been more productive lately(3), allowing smolts to grow quicker when they first enter the marine environment and encouraging more to shop locally and take advantage of seemingly abundant food.
In addition to better survivability, hatchery programs are marking more fish, which DFO (Department of Fisheries and Oceans) is using to justify recreational fisheries that target marked fish (while mandating the release of unmarked fish). Anglers are responding. Data from the South Coast Creel Survey, available through the Federal Science Library catalogue, show boat trips this season are 17 per cent higher than the five-year average. And so are harvest rates.
Equipped with improved gear to locate and catch fish, anglers are far more efficient than they were the last time coho productivity was this high. The coho harvest to date is over 132,000, most of which would have been marked fish—2.4 times the five-year average. For chinook, it’s over 150,000, approximately 20 per cent above the five-year average. However, as I pointed out at the end of last year, the most concerning data pertains to the number of released fish. These numbers, simply put, are out of hand, with creel data reporting 544,700 chinook and coho released in the 2025 fishing season through August.
Since the vast majority of those would have been juvenile chinook and coho, which are smaller and far more susceptible to release mortality, we can estimate somewhere north of 163,000 killed simply because regulations mandate their release. If 163,000 more chinook or coho filled river systems along the south coast, it would be an investment in our future fisheries, good news for the animals and birds who like salmon as much as we do.
More Salmon, More Effort
Improving salmon returns to many areas on the South Coast is indeed good news for anglers. The Salish Sea has been more productive lately(3), allowing smolts to grow quicker when they first enter the marine environment and encouraging more to shop locally and take advantage of seemingly abundant food.
In addition to better survivability, hatchery programs are marking more fish, which DFO (Department of Fisheries and Oceans) is using to justify recreational fisheries that target marked fish (while mandating the release of unmarked fish). Anglers are responding. Data from the South Coast Creel Survey, available through the Federal Science Library catalogue, show boat trips this season are 17 per cent higher than the five-year average. And so are harvest rates.
Equipped with improved gear to locate and catch fish, anglers are far more efficient than they were the last time coho productivity was this high. The coho harvest to date is over 132,000, most of which would have been marked fish—2.4 times the five-year average. For chinook, it’s over 150,000, approximately 20 per cent above the five-year average. However, as I pointed out at the end of last year, the most concerning data pertains to the number of released fish. These numbers, simply put, are out of hand, with creel data reporting 544,700 chinook and coho released in the 2025 fishing season through August.
Since the vast majority of those would have been juvenile chinook and coho, which are smaller and far more susceptible to release mortality, we can estimate somewhere north of 163,000 killed simply because regulations mandate their release. If 163,000 more chinook or coho filled river systems along the south coast, it would be an investment in our future fisheries, good news for the animals and birds who like salmon as much as we do.
Photo: David Mills
Photo: Tavish Campbell
Photo: David Mills
Photo: Tavish Campbell
We’re Overdue for an Honest Conversation About Releasing Salmon
We’re Overdue for an Honest Conversation About Releasing Salmon
Many anglers I know, and those who have written to comment on my previous reporting, are, to put it mildly, sickened by this practice and feel it should cease. In its place, many people feel that salmon caught should go towards the daily and seasonal limits. If this practice was normalized, it would dramatically lower the number of lethal interactions between salmon and anglers, and fish would still be coming home with people who enjoy this healthy source of food.
Even a cursory glance through popular South Coast fishing groups on Facebook reveals reports of upwards of twenty releases per outing. My fishing buddy’s father, on aging sea legs, joined a crew of old-timers off Esperanza. One boat with three anglers released 70 fish searching for hatchery coho after they had caught their wild ones. Rex was so disgusted by the experience that he wrote a letter to his friends explaining the damage they were doing while trying to reach their limit.
We should not be squandering opportunities for chinook and coho to recolonize available habitat. And since DFO’s monitoring remains (a) inadequate and (b) is facing further cuts, we are in no position to declare that killing this number of fish is sustainable.
Many anglers I know, and those who have written to comment on my previous reporting, are, to put it mildly, sickened by this practice and feel it should cease. In its place, many people feel that salmon caught should go towards the daily and seasonal limits. If this practice was normalized, it would dramatically lower the number of lethal interactions between salmon and anglers, and fish would still be coming home with people who enjoy this healthy source of food.
Even a cursory glance through popular South Coast fishing groups on Facebook reveals reports of upwards of twenty releases per outing. My fishing buddy’s father, on aging sea legs, joined a crew of old-timers off Esperanza. One boat with three anglers released 70 fish searching for hatchery coho after they had caught their wild ones. Rex was so disgusted by the experience that he wrote a letter to his friends explaining the damage they were doing while trying to reach their limit.
We should not be squandering opportunities for chinook and coho to recolonize available habitat. And since DFO’s monitoring remains (a) inadequate and (b) is facing further cuts, we are in no position to declare that killing this number of fish is sustainable.
Photo: Tavish Campbell
Photo: Tavish Campbell
Conversations Between Our Fishing Cultures
Conversations Between Our Fishing Cultures
Whether you are a recreational angler fishing purely for sport (catch and release), an angler fishing for food where regulations require you to release fish (some catch, some release), or a commercial or Indigenous fisher in a commercial or Indigenous fishery that requires the release of non-target fish, different cultural practices are at play. Since these fisheries often exist side-by-side, it is important to recognize that people fish for different reasons. We do not always agree with the methods others use. You have likely heard river anglers disparaging gill nets. You may have heard Indigenous fishers stating it is not right to play with your food. We’ve heard charter operators say they add more value to the economy than commercial fishers. When returns dwindle, these views, which stem from our own cultures and interests, are in competition with each other.
However, we can agree that fishing or angling is an excellent way to procure high-quality, local food, reacquaint people with the natural world, and viscerally connect the people who live here to salmon, which underpin so much of what makes the societies of the Pacific Northwest and our ecosystems—anchored by towering conifers, killer whales, and mighty bears—unique. And, we can agree how lucky we are to still have this opportunity, despite doing so much to squander it.
I think that most recreational anglers would buy a better net, stop fishing with a flasher, and use smaller hooks if they knew it helped—because none of those simple changes in practice impose hardships or threaten anyone’s identity. But as our climate, ocean conditions, and other forces impose challenges to the lives that salmon live, those conversations will invariably get harder. So, let’s practice having them now, so we can improve our practices, adapt, and keep learning about the pastime we love. Here’s an example: “I noticed you were catching a lot of juvenile salmon. Juvenile salmon have a much lower chance of survival when released. When that happens to me, I move to another spot.”
The conversations started by the Pacific Salmon Ecology and Conservation Lab researchers are already shifting our collective behaviour. Let’s keep them going. But this would be a lot easier if we had some help from the people who are actually paid to protect salmon.
Whether you are a recreational angler fishing purely for sport (catch and release), an angler fishing for food where regulations require you to release fish (some catch, some release), or a commercial or Indigenous fisher in a commercial or Indigenous fishery that requires the release of non-target fish, different cultural practices are at play. Since these fisheries often exist side-by-side, it is important to recognize that people fish for different reasons. We do not always agree with the methods others use. You have likely heard river anglers disparaging gill nets. You may have heard Indigenous fishers stating it is not right to play with your food. We’ve heard charter operators say they add more value to the economy than commercial fishers. When returns dwindle, these views, which stem from our own cultures and interests, are in competition with each other.
However, we can agree that fishing or angling is an excellent way to procure high-quality, local food, reacquaint people with the natural world, and viscerally connect the people who live here to salmon, which underpin so much of what makes the societies of the Pacific Northwest and our ecosystems—anchored by towering conifers, killer whales, and mighty bears—unique. And, we can agree how lucky we are to still have this opportunity, despite doing so much to squander it.
I think that most recreational anglers would buy a better net, stop fishing with a flasher, and use smaller hooks if they knew it helped—because none of those simple changes in practice impose hardships or threaten anyone’s identity. But as our climate, ocean conditions, and other forces impose challenges to the lives that salmon live, those conversations will invariably get harder. So, let’s practice having them now, so we can improve our practices, adapt, and keep learning about the pastime we love. Here’s an example: “I noticed you were catching a lot of juvenile salmon. Juvenile salmon have a much lower chance of survival when released. When that happens to me, I move to another spot.”
The conversations started by the Pacific Salmon Ecology and Conservation Lab researchers are already shifting our collective behaviour. Let’s keep them going. But this would be a lot easier if we had some help from the people who are actually paid to protect salmon.
Fish scales. Photo: Tavish Campbell
Fish scales. Photo: Tavish Campbell
Do Your Job, DFO
Do Your Job, DFO
Do you ever wonder why it is that you still walk into a tackle store and find nothing but barbed hooks, when they’ve been against the regs for how long now? Everyday anglers cannot change these rules. And, we can’t collect the data about how many undersized release fish are wild vs. hatchery. But when our experience on the water matches the new data on release mortality, it deserves a response from DFO.
On their watch, anglers are forced to release grievously wounded fish, which in a matter of minutes or days will sink dead to the bottom or be eaten by a predator. In the current environment it makes sense to keep releasing larger salmon. They fare much better, and we have spent decades high-grading them. However new regulations allowing anglers to keep both smaller and unmarked fish, and cease fishing when their limit is reached, are needed to achieve and maintain conservation outcomes.
If DFO can demonstrate how releasing hundreds of thousands of salmon, knowing a vast percentage will die shortly thereafter, genuinely serves conservation, then I will cease my advocacy. But when the rules shamefully waste a resource instead of protecting it, I’m of the opinion that they must change.
1. Release mortality in Pacific salmon fisheries along the homing migration and recommended best practices to maximize welfare and survival. Hinch et al writing in Fisheries Research, Volume 289, September 2025, 107480
2. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165783625002176?via%3Dihub#bbib144