I just get frustrated with the system. This year it's barbless hooks for salmon/steelhead. Ok...great if it reduces mortality for catch-n-release. But how much will it really get at the root of the problem? Barbless hooks have been used for sturgeon...and the result? Complete closure for sturgeon retention in 2013 and possibly longer. To me, it seems ODFW and Oregonians in general never really want to get at the root of the problem and always try to cut down the tree with a nail file instead of using an axe. Barbless hooks are a nail file. Stopping the over-fishing is the axe. For people who are subsistence fishermen living below the poverty level who can't afford to buy protein in the form of chicken, beef, etc., they should be allowed to apply for a license allowing them to harvest salmon/steelhead at a reasonable level to feed their family. But the majority of the fishermen i know can afford other sources of protein. It's these sport fisherman that are over-fishing -- catching 200 lbs or more of salmon/steelhead per year and not eating all of it. There is a lot of freezer burned fish being wasted in Oregon every year. Guys at my office bring in smoked salmon and cooked salmon and leave it in the lunch room for co-workers to eat because they are overflowing with it at home --- and a lot of that salmon ends up in the workplace trash. Seriously, I like to eat salmon, but I cannot possibly eat a pound of it a day every day, so why should ODFW let me retain 365 lbs. of salmon a year just because i can afford the salmon tags?
When my uncle passed away (God bless his soul), we had to clean out the pantry in his house...hundreds of quart-sized mason jars filled with salmon, most of it a decade or older...rancid and wasted.
And when my buddies in Washington went fishing recently, they killed five king salmon during catch & release (with barbless hooks) before they caught the two kings they could legally keep. 7 dead fish, when there could have been only two dead fish if the regulations were set up properly.
Sorry for the rant, but barbless hooks seem like a joke to me. Maybe it will save a couple thousand fish next year. Wonderful. But not much of a game changer.
At least ODFW got it right on the sturgeon closure. But maybe it wouldn't have gotten to that point in the first place if they had limited the harvest even more in previous years.
So...now i suppose I have to grab the needle nose pliers and pinch down all the barbs on my Kwikfish and other lures. Hopefully ODFW will be okay with that. Or will i have to go out and buy new barbless hooks?