Northwest Fishing Reports

So can someone explain the JACK rule? I was recently fishing with friends out on the cascade.. Slow and void of fish except one hole that was a great producer for others that were there... Note that the cascade is marked as a HATCHERY CHINOOK fishery at the moment... Which in wdfw terms as clipped fish only...

Now the problem i'm having is that the group that was fishing was keeping unclipped chinook JACKS.... 6 of them to be exact with 2 hatchery hens all bonked on the shore.... I asked how the fishing was and got a shrug and said it sucked... Looked damn good to me for that hole but damn...... Are they legal to keep or not?

Unless there are some emergency rules in place for the Cascade, these are the current regs regarding salmon.

SALMON June 1-July 15 Min. size 12". Daily limit 4 hatchery CHINOOK only. Up to 2 may be
adults.

Jack Salmon - Chinook and coho salmon that return at a younger age than most members of their species. For freshwater and in Willapa Bay (area 2-1) and Grays Harbor (area 2-2), a jack salmon is a Chinook less than 24" in length or a coho less than 20" in length.

So, you are allowed to keep a total of 4 hatchery Chinook which can be a mixed bag of jacks and adults. This does not mean you can keep 2 adults in addition to 4 jacks, which would be a total of 6 Chinook.

also, according to the rule quoted above, unclipped jacks would be illegal to retain (since they are not "hatchery chinook")

I was thinking the exact same thing, unclipped is considered a wild/native fish and therefore non-keeper...... There was some discussions on NWFR a while back about this very situation but i can't find the post... Someone stated that a jack whether clipped or not is still a jack and should be removed from the system... Now i cant find it....

Anytime the regs say hatchery Chinook only then only clipped fish can be retained regardless of size. And like stated previously on the cascade it's 4 fish total with 2 being adults, but once you've retained your 2 adults you must stop fishing. It's illegal to continue fishing for Jack's once you've bonked the adult portion of your limit.

Heard that, now if we can just educate the rest of the world we would all be the better....

A simplification of the regs would help tremendously lol...best to just call the warden these days and somebody comes out to check.

Regs change from one river to another. in some rivers, unciipped jacks are OK to retain; in other rivers, they are not.

Shad_Eating_Grin wrote:Regs change from one river to another. in some rivers, unciipped jacks are OK to retain; in other rivers, they are not.

This.

In many of the rivers open to hatchery fish only - it will state to release all wild ADULT chinook or coho - meaning jacks are okay to retain if unclipped.

onmygame

spokey9 wrote:A simplification of the regs would help tremendously lol...best to just call the warden these days and somebody comes out to check.

Totally agree here, the problem is only partially the rules.... The WA regs are the most confusing bs.... for new fisherman especially. Out of state anglers are generally in awe... The layout, wording, inconsistency and scattered nature of the booklet is amazing every year. It shouldn't take avid anglers nearly an hour to check all over the regs and multiple online sources to be sure about the current rules for a fishery. - rant over