Silverblade

Hold on, TRUCE!!! FIRST I was in high school and back then there wasn't an issue with keeping fish, even so I frequently let them go. 2nd they were legal to keep if I'd wanted to, and the ones I did were bleeding badly out the gills or what not and would have died - so I decided to keep them.

Second, they could be residents as crawfish have the carotene needed to make meat orange/pink. Of course it depends on their diet and in any case I fully admit I am not certain they weren't sea run, just don't think so.

Finally I wasn't arguing, and I appologize if it seemed that way. I was hoping that through and exchange of information we could determine what the fish were. If it seems like I was questioning your integrety then it wasn't meant to.

Hopfully I've cleared the proverbial water here - please don't get high and mighty with something done 20+ years ago AND fully legal by the regulations. If I did it today then I'd derserve it and I catch and release most fish even if I don't have to.

osmosis

I apologize for misunderstanding your side of the story.
I still have no doubt those fish aren't year round residents however. plus I have extreme doubts trying to rationalize that there are any fish in the tualitin feeding so exclusively on crawdads that it's meat has carotene transfered from them.
I suppose I should have rephrased my earlier statement to "enough" carotene.

Call me high and mighty if you really think so, but I still don't believe the previous legalities did our fisheries any favors.


"Sure hope they tasted great 'cus you aren't gonna catch them anymore" is all I meant by my previous posts.

I wasn't meaning to say it was wrong to keep and eat fish, but I wasn't clear enough. Unidentified fish however should be looked into further before harvest whether it was 1970 or now.

Wilsonriverfisher

huh? Did i miss something somewhere?

Silverblade

Glad that's cleared up, sure want to keep this forum friendly. That's the problem with this medium of communication, nothing but cold words to go on to tell what the other guy is thinking or saying. It's easy to get things wrong!

As for the fish I was catching. They were cuts for sure. It's too bad that the fish counts at Bonneville and Willamette falls don't appear to keep track of trout - it would be interesting to see if they get sea runs at either or both (or ever have). The web pages I just looked at didn't have them.

Sea runs are in a big decline and have been for a while, at least in coastal streams. As far as I can tell "they" don't know why either. What a loss, the fish were great fun in August and September. The fish I was catching were caught in spring though, does NOT mean they weren't searun though.
Also - I'm far from expert on what a fish needs to eat to have orange meat. I know shrimp, crawfish and such in a higher percentage will do it and ocean fish tend to have orange meat (at least salmonids) where lake bound often do not. Again - just discussion here, I am game to learn more!

As for keeping fish - apparently we have a philosophical difference here. If I have effectively killed a fish I'd I'd just as soon keep it and enjoy eating it as opposed to giving it to the crawfish in the river. Even today it pains me to toss back a steelhead that won't make it, though happily that's rare for me as I make very attempt to be very careful with them. If we really wanted to save the fish we'd all stop fishing though, so if you fish at all - even releasing them you're putting the future stocks in danger. It's all a matter of degree. My concience is clear today as far as my impact on the fisheries, I follow regulations and above and beyond that try to be a good steward of the rivers and lakes I visit.
Anyhow - handshake - hope to see you on the river some time!

Kyle a.k.a. Silverblade

cavdad45

It's still a great warmwater fishery for smallmouth, largemouth, crappie, catfish, carp.......and of course, crawdads!

phillk6751

true....but would you eat anything out of it? if so what parts of the river? i know down in tualatin city and below I'd do no more than c&r....i've never been much further upstream than cook park

JBean

Hey guys/gals, I thought according to the regs I have, that the Tualatin isn't open for any fishing until May 1. I've been waiting cause it's my closest river, and I love to fish it, snags and all. So am I wrong?

Oh, and as far as the water, I've heard that the quality is much better than it used to be.



EDIT: Regs say you can fish bait in the river starting May 24th. So, keep those worms outta there until then!

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Silverblade

A lot of the water quality in the area is better in some ways than it used to be particularly sewage and stuff aren't getting in. These days it's mostly invisible chemicals and still lots of run-off from yards so it's fertilzers and what not. I do wonder what's happened to the local native trout that used to be in the upper reaches of the Tualatin and tributaries, last time I fished for them they seemed pretty scarce. I hope that they can figure out what's hitting the searuns so badly & maybe stop whatever it is. I miss fishing for them.

JBean

Took a trip to Cook park today, threw every spinner/top water/jig&bobber we had, no luck. But a park worker said that they fished out a body from there last summer yikes, a gal commited suicide there. It was a horribly sad tale. Also the guy said last May, someone pulled out a steelhead, a native, from the river. So, they are in there! I can't wait until it gets warmer......

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phillk6751

haha, perfect argument for the water quality, lol