I have mentioned before my 20 year fishing career in SE AK & Wa. Purse Seining and power trolling. Anyway, in 1987 we had a disastrous Pink Salmon season, even though it was expected to be outstanding. Later that fall we found out why, the F'n Koreans flooded the market with immature canned Pinks. The Koreans never had a run of Pinks over there or hatcheries. They had sent their entire fleet of ocean gill stranglers and intercepted basically the entire run in the NW sector of the gulf of AK. BTW only idiots would gill strangle in the ocean, hell, the wasted kill ratio of fish in inside waters in high winds is 40% ++. These waters were supposedly 'off limits' to ALL fishing, including the US mid water trawlers. Not only pinks, but this area in the gulf is like a milling ground for Kings, Steelhead and Silvers....like a feeding station before turning back for the coast. Most of the 'big' fish probably bled to death.They snuck in at the right time, don't have to be a genius to figure out when that is every year, and decimated not only that years economy and escapement, but many cycles for the next decade. I wish this technology was in place at that time....actually we all wanted them to be blasted from the ocean, except the crewmembers who were basically fishing for rice for their families.
