Why chinook?

[MuskieBait]

I'd rather have...

Atlantic salmon - They hit dry flies even when spawning...and on the east coast, the Atlantics overwinter in the river, then make a big push back to the ocean in the spring. These returning salmon are hungry and you can catch over 30 in a day.

But if I can only pick from the Pacific salmon...

1) Pink salmon...the swarm the river in large groups and spawning pinks will hit spoons, spinners and flies aggressively.

2) Chum salmon...again, spawning chums are aggressive...and they look soooo much better than an ugly brown/black chinook...even very late in the spawn.

3) Coho salmon...like you said, some of them do bite aggressively, and they also are more beautiful than chinooks.

The reason chinooks are still stocked is to maintain the charter industry along Lake Ontario. Over and over again you hear from charter guys who say chinooks are better because big fish attracts more customers. No one would pay $700/day on a charter catching 5-6lb coho or Atlantics, or 2-3lb pink. Chum salmon get upwards of 20lbs, but I think the experiment to stock them into the Great Lakes failed. So chinooks are still stocked.

Really, I can careless about chinooks...just stop stocking and let them naturally reproduce, and redirect the money to stocking more Atlantics and doing stream rehab to reestablish the Atlantics. Black boots that don't bite is not only frustrating, but very annoying when they keep running into your line and you lose hooks, splitshots, swivels and the occasional floats when you try to pull the hook on those accidentally snagged fish...especially when you are after steelhead, browns trout and coho.