Of course the question dealt with whether barbed or barbless showed any difference on whether you caught the fish or lost the fish, not on the mortality experienced with one or the other. Many fly fishermen use or are required to use barbless hooks and salmon and steelhead fishing on the West Coast and inland rivers requires the use of barbless hooks to facilitate the release of wild fish where only hatchery fish may be kept. I’ve used barbless hooks for my trout fishing (fly fishing) and steelhead fishing with jigs or bait and as long as I do a good job of setting the hook and properly playing the fish, I loose very few fish to the degree that I catch as many as I’m allowed or as many as I feel like catching. It’s likely true that using barbed hooks, everything being equal, more fish would be landed but that would likely be more bass and other spiny ray fish who’s mouth structure are much different that trout or the salmon and steelhead. If your going to release fish I recommend barbless just to make it easier and to save any fish from damage getting that barb out.

It would be my take that it’s not your leader or tippet size but your line size. Along with the rod rating. It’s the weight of the line that allows you to transfer the power of your rod to the fly your trying to throw. The line is matched to the rod so the rod will load on the Back cast. One thing you can do is go up a line weight even two line weights. This will load the rod more and also carry the streamers easier. You can increase the overall leader size A bit to Match the heavier line but still allow for a fairly small tippet, though bass are not as leader shy as trout. I would also use a weight forward line.

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess you haven’t read or don’t understand what you read in the regs. I do read them from cover to cover and I can’t think of any water in Washington that allows bait fishing (there are places where artificial lures are the only thing you can fish with) where you can’t use a worm. The prohibition of using live bait does not apply to worms and a more careful reading will show you what other live baits can be used. Generally, the regs don’t allow you to use any bait, live bait specifically, other than that which comes from the water you are using it in. It gets a bit more specific than that but that’s the bottom line. Long Lake rules aren’t much different than Columbia River Rules for Walleye and the go to rig for walleye in the main stem Columbia is a bottom walker tipped with a fresh night crawler. In fact just what I would suggest our original questioner try. Along with jigging baits. Walleye like it deep except in low light times of the day when they may come into shallow water. Small plastic soft baits bounced along the bottom can catch them as well. Deep diving plugs that get down towards the bottom can be trolled effectively as well. And it never hurts to add a worm to sweeten the flavors. Maybe off a trailer hook a couple inches back.

That’s like a joke right?

In the Columbia river drainage which is an iconic system for salmon and steelhead they are NOT building any new dams. The last dam built on the Columbia is almost a quarter century old. If not more so. They all have fish passage and fish counting. Virtually as many salmon and steelhead that pass the first dam on the Snake also make it up past the last dam with fish passage. There are two upper dams on the Columbia and four on the upper Snake that were built without fish passage and no salmon or steelhead can get past them those dams are not being considered for removal though. Before Grand Coollee dam was built before WWII there was a run of salmon that went by that location and up into Canada that went over 100 pounds. They needed that size to make the trip.

RecentLy fisheries biologists were discussing the crash of Steelhead runs up the Columbia. Still fish coming but a constant decline each year. To the point that most fishing for them has been closed. They speculate that it’s the deep ocean conditions that are affecting their numbers as they mature. They leave the rivers and go way out to sea unlike salmon who stay relatively close to shore as they mature. There is something going on in the deep ocean compared to more inshore but research is very difficult way out so there is no definitive data on what’s happening to smolts in their first few years at sea or the adults who have come in to spawn and returned to sea for subsequent years of adulthood. My guess is that is related to food supply and that is related to ocean temperature. Then on top of that rivers run hotter and shallower because of a shifting climate.

Billions have been spent by rate payers in the PNW to improve fish passage and hatcheries but that only helps so much if fish aren’t surviving the oceans or the predators they run into as they come back up rivers to spawn. Even smolts going out run a gantlet of fish eating birds and seals who are protected.

Dead drifting is usually associated with dry flies. Surface bugs usually hit the water and stay where they land or lift off to land someplace else. Associating dead drift with dry flys is normal but not universal. There are situations where your dry can skitter across the surface at the end of the drift as the current starts to swing it that can be effective. Swinging a fly is usually associated with wet flies and nymphs where the fly has sunk down as in a dead drift but is allowed to swing cross current as the line straightens out at the end of the drift. Normally nymphing calls for bouncing the nymph along the bottom where fish are stationed to pick up bugs drifting down stream. But allowing them to swing in the current just adds another opportunity to attract a strike. It usually calls for a cast that quarters more down stream initially than up stream if you want to swing the fly. It would be most effective if your fishing streamers as they represent small more mobile fish than the usual aquatic nymph that really doesn’t move through the water very fast at all.

We have to use barbless hooks for salmon and steelhead up here in Washington with few if any exceptions and I’ve not experienced many if any lost fish if I play them right. And that includes using bait, which doesn’t fall off for the lack of a barb. They are also easier to get a good hookup without that barb and no hook comes sharp enough out of the packaging. They all get sharpened first. If they aren’t sharp enough to be dangerous to even look at, they aren’t sharp.

I use the Palomar knot with the braid to swivel and a clinch knot on the leader side. To use a Palomar knot on both you’d have to tie on the leader first. But that would mean you’d have to cut both knots free if you wanted to add a new leader because the leader needs to be added first. If you picture it properly the swivel with the leader can be passed through the loop of the second Palomar knot on the braid. But not the braid through the loop when tying the leader on.

The reason I pointed to Boundary Dam is that they are in that river, the Pend Oreille and there are no fish passages in that dam. It is also right at the Canadian border as the river flows north into Canada as part of the Upper Columbia drainage. They could have been introduced anywhere up stream in the Pend Oreille river drainage. Haven’t been up there in decades but even back then there was an active program to eliminate them or reduce their number, even by netting them in the Pend Oreille.. Iike the Lake Trout in Yellowstone Lake, they destroy the native fish cuttroat populations, bass and trout in this case.

Once you do catch some perch cure some strips of perch belly and such in a strong salt solution, very strong, and keep it in the frig for the next trip.

If you are intending to release fish, they should not be grounded, drug out on the sand and rocks, dirt etc. spiny ray are hardier than trout but a net helps land a fish safely, gently and securely. No need to spend a lot of money, just get one big enough for what your catching with a handle long enough to keep you out of the water. And for you beach fishermen walking up and down the Bach, there is a strong rare earth magnet clip that you can attach one side to behind your neck and the other side to the outer end of the net. Let’s you carry the net behind you and reach it easily if you need it. Most fly fishermen use them and they are strong.

As I understand it they were introduced further up the drainage well above Boundary Dam where they were being first targeted for removal. Same for walleye though that may have been further down. Walleye are almost all the way through the Columbia now whereas Northern Pike are still just in the upper reaches. But they both are devastating to salmon smolts.

The Palomar knot is my go to knot for braid to lure or swivel, etc.

Been fly fishing almost as long as ‘fly guy’ just not as successfully. But it’s a general truth that us flyfishers just like the challenge of fooling trout and other fish with a bunch of feathers artfully tied onto a hook rather than natural bait. And to that end are not as in to filling a freezer or smoker with tout. But that’s a generalization. I keep some of the trout I take fly fishing but they are stockers and intended to be caught and kept. There are also bodies of water where trout are protected from large if any catch limits. That could be to create a trophy fishing experience or just as likely to maintain a healthy wild population. Some streams just aren’t that fertile and what trout are present just can’t stand a vigorous catch and keep fishery. All in all, catch and release or catch and keep are neither wrong or superior. It’s often just a personal choice as long as it fits the management goals of the local game department. I Fish a small stream where some sections are fly fishing only, other sections are selective fishing with no bait allowed and a limit of two fish a day. Within a couple hundred yards there are ponds and lakes where the trout are planted specifically for catch and keep with a five fish limit. I fish both and according to the regs choose whether I’ll C and R or take a few home. But it’s fun to catch them on afly rather than Power Bait. Even if allowed. I’ve stood next to bait fishermen and found the right fly, catching one fish after another to be released while the bait fishermen were not having any luck. I Don’t gloat or think I’m special, just lucky to still be able to have fun. And I’m not above helping some youngster figure out how to present his Power Bait or worm to catch his five fish. Or offer some fella to try a few casts with my fly rod.

Washington defines most all trout and spiny ray fish as Game Fish including the various types of land locked salmon and even Atlantic salmon. Whereas Common carp, Shad, salmon, sturgeon, tuna, mackerel, bottom fish like cod etc. are classified as Food Fish. Pan fish is not a species by any stretch of science. If anything that title comes from tradition as fishermen called those types of fish, usually spiny ray, even small trout as “pan fish” due to their culinary uses. Salmon likely got the designation as a food fish because of their commercial exploitation where the other fish called “Game Fish” don’t have the history of commercial harvesting in the same way. I’d guess that designating certain types of fish as Game a Fish also has to do with how they are separately managed by game departments. And that’s the truth. 😇