PhlyanPan

You're right. California. My bad, a different video mentioned Florida. Not sure what you man about holding them vertically? You mean posing with them before they send them down? Yeah I can imagine that wouldn't be great for them. You're also right about lack of information regarding how many fish actually survived. I'd love to see a study that had a way of confirming that. Ultimately I just thought it was an interesting discussion and I'm always open to methods that ensure as many fish survive catch and release as possible.

Anybody use these? I found this video of a study done in Florida of various devices designed to release fish at depth and thought with all of the lake trout catching done here in recent years maybe we should be thinking about this. I could easily see a way of rigging up a chamberlain release to perform this same type of release at depth using a downrigger. Thoughts?

That's a good tip. I never thought of that. Looks like I'll be searching for another place to buy my gas. Paying extra to have 2 gallons of gas be garbage is crap.

My only two hits were a magnum spoon on the rigger. 15 ft over 25. Sexy veggie. Red top center console.

Good work capt. We were the red top center console you passed on the way in with our riggers still down.

Went straight out of genny. Made a quick run to the east to get set up before swinging back through. Our first rigger fired before we even got divers in the water. 15 down over 25 on a sexy veggie spoon. About a 6-8 lb steelhead. Beautiful fish. About half hour later same rigger fires over 30 feet of water just west of the river. 13 lb king. Nothing else but a skipper steelie the whole rest of the day. Headed in at noon. We tried everything we could think of...slow troll, fast troll, j plugs, leadcore, flasher flies, in the pack, out of the pack, deeper, shallower,...etc.

I was with you. We had two hits early and then nothing despite a report of a good bite in top 10 feet. Guys at the launch had 7 in the boat. We tried speeds from 2.1-3.0 with nothing but a skipper steelie after the first 2.

This.

I just got a heartland from Gander mountain. It was cheap and free in store pickup.

How about $30 each

Still have these. Anybody want gimbal mount bases?

We went on a charter this year at the end of May. We caught steelhead fishing the same spoons we were catching lakers and salmon on, just up a bit higher in the water. I think we were looking at mid 50s for water temps. At that time it was in the 30-40 ft depth range if I remember correctly.

Got to the launch just before 5 and found the place looking abandoned. Dropped in and headed out in the pitch dark again seeing nobody in site and wondering what they knew that we didn't. By the time we got some gear in the water and got a pass in we started seeing a couple of other boats and were a little more comfortable. We stayed mostly deeper then the pack by a bit just because we were new and wanted to have room to maneuver especially with the wind blowing us all over. Fished mostly between 30 and 40, came in to 25 once. Marks were random, occasionally marking groups of fish only to have them gone when we swung back around. Ended up having 3 releases. 2 on the diver that broke off (1 bad knot and 1 trying to pop the diver that I think was already popped... We're learning.) And one that we netted that was 20 down over 32 feet of water. Went off on the rigger. Fuzzy bear dirty Harry with a mother's milk spoon on a slider above it. Shots on the diver were on a green spoon doctor with a white fly and pink dirty goose spoon. King that we boated ended up at 11.2 lbs which seemed very small to me for a staging mature king?

What if I have a very large fish tank at home?

I know deep water kings in the summer is sketchy as far as survival rates but what about this time of year. If I release a king caught in relatively shallow water would it live to spawn?

How early is early? What time do you guys hit the water this time of year?

Love to hear the report. We're hoping to go out Saturday for our first trip ever on our own. Hope the weather is doable. If it is, we're going to be looking for a starting point and would love some advice.