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Re: NH F&G Are You Listening? Not unless you contact them

Russ...the other Johnson

Thanks for the reply. I wish I had been at the gathering but family comes first.

The netting numbers that you speak of are I believe a good indicator of the salmon population in our lakes. Did those reduction in total numbers account for the undersized salmon put into the lakes the last two years. I have seen the data from the last several years and they do tell a story. One thing I know fishing many hours at Squam is that the one and two year old fish are practically non existent both in the fall netting and the fishing creel. I don't mind catching large older fish but there are two age classed missing from that lake and I presume the other lakes as well.

My point is if you go just by the numbers and don't look beyond the surface for all the underlying contributing factors it never becomes corrected and perhaps some restrictions are placed on the fishery that aren't based on all the information and aren't needed.

In the long long ago past the salmon population in all our lakes have increased and decreased based on a number of factors such as available bio-mass, fishing pressure, fish kept, carefull release, health and size of the stocked fish and so on....This has happened before and the fishermen go away....then as the population gets healthier and word gets out the fisherman come back. It is somewhat self correcting with a little help from our biologists at Fish and Game...thank goodness.

Self restraint is a tough one...just ask Mr. Sampson. I've fished with him.

Thanks,

Roger-

Re: NH F&G Are You Listening? Not unless you contact them

Curious to know how the salmon are making out on Newfound and the other lightly stocked lakes. I have fished Newfound alot in the past and rarely catch salmon.Stocking 25k a year in winni and 500 a year in Newfound, would be interesting to see the comparison in fish quality, health and hook wounds.

Re: NH F&G Are You Listening? Not unless you contact them

Come on Russ and F&G. Have you never released a single hooked fish vs. a treble hooked fish. There's a HUGE difference IMO.
Rarely does the treble hook only have one hook embedded. And after you get one of the hooks released and you're working on the second one, the fish wiggles and your released hook gets embedded a second time.
All this time the fish is out of the water and handled a lot more than just releasing a single hook.

I don't believe that single hooks get swallowed deeper than treble hooks-at least that's not my experience.
Treble hooks HAVE to cause much more severe hook wounding than single hooks IMO.
Cal

Re: NH F&G Are You Listening? Not unless you contact them

Amen Cal. My thoughts on treble hooks, exactly. I believe NHF&G's position is that they don't have evidence or maybe data to support that. Perhaps because, in a netting survey it is impossible to determine what kind of hook did the damage. If I had to guess, I would say the anglers among F&G would tend to agree with you.
Richard

Re: NH F&G Are You Listening? Not unless you contact them

That was not my opinion, that was a stated opinion from F&G that was based on facts, as I reported. In truth, I haven't fished as extensively with singles to have an opinion. But I did ask another expert opinion who has fished singles hooks and their response was that there is no easy answer, singles represented yet another problem when catching shorts, potential lethal hooking. I think it still remains the intent of most if not all of us to be as conscientious as possible. If it isn't, it should be. I know that the folks I speak with all intend to swap to single hooks. Obviously, I will develop my own opinion soon enough. But I will be very mindful of both of the expert opinions I have solicited when I develop my own.

And we all know that practicing careful catch and release, keeping the injured only and releasing all healthy, rubber nets, etc, to name only a few will go a long way in the conservation of our fishery.

Tight lines all, the season is upon us. Good fishing!