Post By: Jay777 Posted: 8/27/2012 9:05:15 PM Points: 62
Just wanted to chime in and say Sept. 1st has got to be the best day of the year. Looking forward to another salmon snagging season as well as getting out and doing some dove hunting. Hopefully the salmon are plentiful this year as i am ready to fire up the smoker and have a feast. See you all up there.
I am guessing with the crazy weather and lake conditions we have had this year the salmon will probably start running until the middle of September but that does not mean they will not be in there. Just have to find the holes and keep at it until your arms give out (literally). I would also reccomend stocking up on your snagging hooks now because they tend to go pretty fast and sometimes hard to find around town.
Reply by: smokinpenn Posted: 8/28/2012 12:39:50 AM Points:
after living in nj for 13 years i moved back to co.living in moffat now,i plan on snagging the salmon asap.problem is i havent done it since i was about 13.what size weighted hooks are best/areas/times ect?thanks
Reply by: Flyfisher05 Posted: 8/28/2012 7:35:01 AM Points: 2
@ deerhunter and smokinpenn i would recommend going back and reading some of the posts from this time last year for gross and probably green mountain res. there's a lot of info on snagging and such. I came across the info as I was researching Gross for the kids and I.
@ Jay, this will be my first time hunting, gonna go fish Gross on Sunday and dove hunting near Wellington on labor day with my boys.
Reply by: tbblom Posted: 8/28/2012 8:28:45 AM Points: 211
I really hope that people on this site don't promote snagging as a 'sport'. Sure, I have accidentally foul hooked plenty of fish, but snagging on purpose just seems lame (even if DOW wants you to...)
It is the worst form of fishing I have seen aside from gill netting or just throwing a grenade.
Not trying to be rude, just my $0.02, the last time I saw snagging I was pretty disgusted. By the act, which lacks all sport, and also by all the trash left around by those who practice it.
Supposedly you can actually catch them on lures/flies. I want to try, but competing with 'snagging bombs' being chucked across a whole channel makes it kind of difficult.
Reply by: aaron3607 Posted: 8/28/2012 8:37:09 AM Points: 179
yes im from the seattle area and the idea of snagging is crazy to me. But since living in Colorado where salmon aren't native why not enjoy the festivity of snagging legally.
Big hook, heavy line, no bait. Rip until you catch some kokanee. Fairly simple. Almost as bad as using large nets to catch about 50 salmon and using your heritage as an excuse.
Reply by: Doc Posted: 8/28/2012 8:40:55 AM Points: 400
Well...like it or not..snagging is a sport here in CO..well kinda..lol..you can catch them sometimes..white tubes..and sometimes on pink as well..good luck and bring your helmet
Reply by: jman Posted: 8/28/2012 9:17:04 AM Points: 1259
You can catch them when there spawning. Thats what im going to do Saturday i probably catch just as many if not more then snag. Just fish on the out skirts of the snaggers or go places they can not snag. I use slip bobbers and pink and white jigs, spoons.pink spinners, and most the time dragging little jigs right across the bottom.
You can catch them especially early like this. I cant dis snagging because i sometimes do it . I would say i enjoy catching them more but sometimes they dont agree with biting.
yeah, if it is legal it is legal. Glad that they get eaten at least. LOL on the helmet comment! It was like a war zone last fall, bombs falling all around.
I'm going to tie up some pink wooly buggers to try out on a sink tip this fall.
So am I ignorant in thinking that the salmon snagging is fine because if they are not caught or snagged that the ones running to spawn are going to die anyways like when they run up in Alaska?
I am kind of surprised by this. I think those of you who are against snagging kokanee are sort of missing the point of the activity.
It isn't meant to be a sporting way to catch fish, it is meant to be an effective way to catch fish. There are generous bag limits on this species, they are stocked in a lot of lakes on an annual basis, have poor natural reproduction, and will shortly die if not harvested. Furthermore, they can be very difficult to catch by sporting methods while spawning.
Snagging makes wise use of a resource, allowing extra potential for greater numbers of the doomed fish to be harvested. I'm sure a lot of people fill their limits this way.
Now on a personal note, I have never been snagging. I much prefer silvers caught through the ice...
Also, all those fish dying and rotting at once can pose a water quality issue, unless predators and anglers clean it out. Normally anglers are hunters/predators. With kokes it seems to me we're more like the recyclers.
Of course, I've never caught a koke. So what do I know. What I do know is that those fish will die anyway, probably eaten alive by birds. Ouch.
"all those fish dying and rotting at once can pose a water quality issue"
Decomposing flesh poses no water quality issue and is actually beneficial for both aquatic life in the stream and riparian vegetation. In Alaska and the Pacific Northwest entire riverine ecosystems from caddisflies to redwoods are wholly dependent upon the scouring action of salmon digging redds and the nutrients left by dead fish. Salmon essentially fertilize streams by moving nutrients from a sink (lake or ocean) back towards the source (river), making them one of nature's great recycling processes.
However, I have no quarrel with snagging in Colorado because it's an effective way to utilize an artificial resource without devolving into a free-for-all with nets and dynamite. I've snagged before and it was fun and tasty.
That's a good and accurate description of the ecosystem services provided by rotting salmon. But it doesn't apply to Colorado. Our riparian systems do not rely on, and aren't prepared for, the mass presence of rotting kokanee.
There is no efficient natural "recycling process" for kokanee in Colorado. Management comes down to harvesting.
The truth is, much of Alaska is managed the same way, as much as we like to think that Alaska is wild and pure.
Salmon are not just "left alone" anywhere in the world. All populations are heavily managed. In Colorado, we're lucky to have any at all.
They are here solely for the pleasure of anglers, and I have no problem with that.
As far as I know, they are not important to any ecosystem in the state.
I fundamentally agree with you. I'd love to see a study in CO about the affects of decomposing salmon. Since most salmon studies take place where salmon have been for a long time (even great lakes salmon have been around for about 200 yrs) the jury is still out about how much of an impact salmon have on their environment. We know there is an impact, but the magnitude of that impact is unknown. For definitive results we need to compare a "before and after", and Colorado would be a good place to do that since we can fairly easily produce an artificial run wherever we want.
I have no problem with people taking as much salmon as they want (within limit), I was just saying that rotting or dead salmon does not create poor water quality.
Like I said, I have no problem with snagging. Go for it, fellas.
All this talk about salmon is getting me edgy. I can't wait to go back home and get some dog salmon on the line. Those fish will straighten out a 1/2 jig and spit it out right back you. You can be standing in two feet of water and one will run into your leg and give you a bruise.
I can't tell you how many reels of line I've losts to king salmon. They'll run and won't stop.
I will attempt to see if Cheeseman has anything to offer this weekend using pink taz's and yes, snaggin hooks.
Kokanee are important to the biology of some lakes, and are stocked in some places for this reason.
Kokanee provide a step in the food chain that is missing in a lot of lakes, changing the biomass of small planktonic invertebrates into substantial forage for large predators such as lake trout. Considering a kokanee's preferred forage and habitat, this is a role that is accomplished by kokanee better than nearly any other fish.
