I caught a couple three pounders last night while smallmouth fishing and it made me wonder who made decisions about what was edible or not. For people unfamiliar with them they are basically a bony trout, I have caught them on anything I use for trout or bass. They don't have a game fin and no one I know eats them and we have lots of them. The same applies to doves and robins or ground and tree squirrels. On the same subject we don't eat suckers here but I know in some areas people do.
Some people make good money on the Columbia and I think Snake rivers fishing for them. There are a lot of them all over the Pacific Northwest. I was wondering why they are considered inedible. I believe they were called squawfish because native women fished for them. I may try one just to see what they taste like.
Hence the name change...gotta be unoffensive to everyone. The reward program is interesting I've fished it, made it to the second tier. The top angler will gross 50k in 5 months.
Prob been done. It's a feel good program imo, the fish need to be 9" and larger to collect bounty. So the 8.75" go back to grow, unless you're really actually trying to protect salmon then you kill all you catch. Has to be rod and reel...silly if they really want to get rid of lots of em.
It would take a pretty long net to span the Columbia or Snake. I agree with eedup it is a feel good program not doing anything for the salmon although I don't have any suggestions to fix the problem.