And so were the salmon, thanks to a calibrated hatchery and harvest program under Gov. John Kitzhaber's coho recovery program. Without even a tug on the line, my cup runneth over. He had already seen a whale, and salmon were down below. Thank you, God. And thanks to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife for resisting the bias against hatchery salmon and opening the central coast fishery up for a limited harvest of hatchery coho.
Wild coho are, of course, threatened.
Thus, the ban. Six years ago there was no way to tell hatchery coho from natives, and fishermen took both. Now hatchery fish are marked, but that doesn't mean keeping them and releasing natives isn't a risk to natives. Only this year did ODFW believe there were enough coho off the coast to allow limited coho fishing. The allowable harvest of hatchery coho was put at 15,000.