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Yes, on occasion, and I always feel bad about it.

2 (2.2%)

Yes, it's my fish which I legitimately caught and I am to use it as I please.

2 (2.2%)

Yes, I only kill female fish for the roe, not for consumption. I always need roe for bait/food.

1 (1.1%)

No, I always practice catch and release regardless of the species or gender.

4 (4.4%)

No, I always make sure I can use the whole fish. I never waste my catch.

81 (90%)

Total Members Voted: 90

[milo]

Seeing so many chinook does lying on the bottom of the Vedder with their bellies slit open made me wonder...
Please be honest about it. It's an anonymous poll.

Feel free to discuss.

[DRP79]

I will take a fish for roe but I do not waste the fish. If it's not good table fare for me, it gets cooked up for my dog.

[BladeKid]

There is probably going to be a bias here with people voting No, because they are the ones who feel passionate about this issue and will therefore be more inclined to vote.

While there is an argument to be made for removing hatchery fish in order to help maintain the genetics of the wild population (i.e. reducing the amount of domesticated genes entering into the spawning population), I feel that this is not a good enough reason to kill a hatchery fish just for its roe for many other reasons (noting that this is only possible where hatcheries adipose clip their releases). Of course, I doubt that this has ever been a primary rationale for such actions.

BK

[Robert_G]

There is almost always a guy or 2 from certain nationalities that are more than willing to take my coloured white spring 'after' I remove the roe.

[Hike_and_fish]

If my back is up against the wall and it's close to the end of Salmon season and I dont have Chum roe for Steelhead,  I will retain a nasty old Chum. I will plant my tomatoes on top of Chunks of Chum and grow a super tomato plant. I had over 120 tomatoes last year on 4 plants thanks to salmon heads. Nothing goes to waste. I save the guts as well. I plant my herbs on top of them.

[milo]

There is almost always a guy or 2 from certain nationalities that are more than willing to take my coloured white spring 'after' I remove the roe.

And that's perfectly fine. The fish is not being wasted in that case.
But what about those times when the guys willing to take your dark fish are not around?
Do you refrain from killing the fish or you just do it anyway?

If my back is up against the wall and it's close to the end of Salmon season and I dont have Chum roe for Steelhead,  I will retain a nasty old Chum. I will plant my tomatoes on top of Chunks of Chum and grow a super tomato plant. I had over 120 tomatoes last year on 4 plants thanks to salmon heads. Nothing goes to waste. I save the guts as well. I plant my herbs on top of them.

That's awesome!!!

[Dubs604]

If my back is up against the wall and it's close to the end of Salmon season and I dont have Chum roe for Steelhead,  I will retain a nasty old Chum. I will plant my tomatoes on top of Chunks of Chum and grow a super tomato plant. I had over 120 tomatoes last year on 4 plants thanks to salmon heads. Nothing goes to waste. I save the guts as well. I plant my herbs on top of them.

I bury all of my fish skeletons in the garden as well.  My wife's kale, tomatoes and zucchini were excellent this year.

My late grandfather and uncle used to bury all of their fish skeletons in their rose gardens for the same reason.

[kanuckle head]

I use all of the fish except for the bones and fins. My dog gets the ones iffy ones for table fare, if I fillet the for eats I keep the skeletons, heads and guts for crab/prawn bait
In the salt chuck I'm not choosy on bucks or does but on the river I try to target females for the roe and do not waste the carcass
Very sad when I see fish discarded and wasted in this way 

[RalphH]

we should go back to the old regs when it was illegal to use salmon roe for bait. Only in the US and Canada can roe be used for bait.

Worms, prawn etc that's fine. Roe, no!

[milo]

we should go back to the old regs when it was illegal to use salmon roe for bait. Only in the US and Canada can roe be used for bait.

Worms, prawn etc that's fine. Roe, no!

Seeing that I only fish artificials, I wholeheartedly agree.
But being the easiest and most productive way to catch salmon and having been relentlessly popularized by the Internet, it will be very hard to put that cured roe genie back in the bottle. In fact, from what I observed, many people on the flow these days don't even try fishing with anything else. They just have their roe boxes attached to their wader belts and that's all they use all day.
When I asked one of them why he doesn't try to put on a jig or a blade, he replied: "I can't be bothered. If coho don't take my roe, they won't take anything". Seriously?

I guess catching salmon with roe is addictive because it's pleasure inducing (the takes can be so savage!).
But maybe each individual angler's evolution will bring them to the point where they will challenge themselves and say: OK, I know I can catch salmon with roe - no big deal. Let's try something different now.

[RalphH]

While not the use of roe specifically but the attitude is one reason why we have the salmon abundance challenges and the quality angling issues we currently have. It's, screw it all I just want my fish! I want to bulk up my freezer.

Milo you've named one good reason to ban roe - the theft of it from fish anglers others don't want. There are others not the least of which is it's a vector for disease transmission.

[Hike_and_fish]

I am on board with a roe ban. I know of some studies that have been done linking the toxic effects of cured roe on resident fish. I do fish artificial baits ( worms and beads ) for Steelhead more often than not. I just dont like it when I lose softbeads. More plastic gone out to sea.

[clarki]

Ethical considerations aside, is it illegal (contrary to any regulations) to kill a chinook, take the roe and leave the carcass on the bank?

Provided the fish was harvested in a legal manner and was recorded on the angler's license, and the angler has not exceeded their daily or annual maximums, is it illegal?

[wildmanyeah]

The real questions should be how many people marked a Chinook on their licence that the killed and discarded but only kept the roe.

I bet not many

[milo]

Ethical considerations aside, is it illegal (contrary to any regulations) to kill a chinook, take the roe and leave the carcass on the bank?

Provided the fish was harvested in a legal manner and was recorded on the angler's license, and the angler has not exceeded their daily or annual maximums, is it illegal?

According to the regs, you are not allowed to carry the roe separated from the fish it came from, unless it is store-bought with an invoice to prove it was legally sold to you, and even then, you can carry no more than a kilo at a time.
So yes, killing the spring doe, removing the roe, and not taking the carcass with you IS ILLEGAL.

Edited to add:
Here's the exact text from the regs:

You must not have more than 1 kg of
roe (fish eggs) in your possession for use
as bait unless the roe was obtained from a
commercial source that lawfully obtained
that roe, or you have in your possession
the freshly dressed fish from which the
roe in excess of 1 kg was taken. Carry a
receipt with you if you purchased roe from
a commercial source.