This has been fun reading the responses...the opinions... a couple of points:

1. I've jigged up salmon while jigging for lake trout on the bottom in 80+ft of water while ice fishing. On etime I was jigging on the bottom in basin @ Shep Brown's and I hooked a salmon that literally jumped out of the hole onto the ice, what a mess it made of the jigging line, yes I promtly got the fish back in the water before I untangled the line.

2. My dad and his buddies fished just below the ice for lake trout and they caught a lot of lakers.

3. About salmon being fragile,lets not forget about the stress that occurs when we play the fish for a long time on light tackle when the water is warm, from what I've the salmon swim away okay but can go into shook due to lactic acid buidlup in their system. We may feel good about releasing the salmon but it may just end on dead on the bottom of the lake. I have seen this occur on a number of occasions when I've caught salmon fly fishing in rivers during the warmer months.

4. Take a look and the fin clip & netting data both here and ME. You find very few LL salmon reach old age, very few reach (5)lbs.

5. Catch and release of LL salmon, well let's just say I see alot of fish on stringers or dead fish pictures during the open water season. IMO I don't think it matters whether the fish was caught and killed in Jan or caught and killed in June. It is still a dead fish.

Finally: The current personal @ NH F&G have done a tremendous job managing Lake Winni for LL salmon and have sucessfully brought the lake trout back.