Great Week with Great Dissapointement

So the last two weeks have been filled with heart pounding action, amazing up close encounters with massive salmon and some of the most awful treatment of fish that I have seen in a very long time. We will start with the good stuff. I started off by taking a look at the river to see if any salmon had started running up the river. To my elation I peer over the cliff that goes down to the river and I see one of the biggest salmon ever hanging peacefully in the middle of the river. Thankfully I had my camera with me so I climb down the cliff and run over to snap a few pictures. As I look a bit closer I notice that the half of the jaw on this poor fish has been ripped off. Now I am not sure how it happened but I have two theories. One is getting smashed up on the rocks in the shallow run up the stream, or an encounter with a large treble hook. I took a better look around and noticed there were a few things that did not seem right. One was a few piles of eggs lying around with blood pools next to them. I did the only natural thing.. scooped up a bunch of eggs and went back home. I tied up a bunch of bags that afternoon, grabbed my gear and a buddy and headed back to the river. I took out my float kit, strung on my float, put on a roe bag and started drifting. After a few drifts thru a nice pool my float disappears and the fight is on. After many drag smoking runs I get this massive dark brown Chinook to rests calmly in my net. One side of this fish was perfect; the other side had his face ripped off basically, It was good old half face that I had seen earlier in the day. I felt bad that I had caught him but at the same time thankful that I was able to catch him. No surprise I was back the next day. I took another look around and saw a few more fish hanging in the pools and another big pile of eggs about 15 feet from the river. Pools of blood circled them and a large Red Devil in the mix. A few feet away were 4 carcases in the river minus the meat. It didn't take a genius to figure out what had happed overnight. From there on things got better and much much worse. I caught many large Chinook thru out the last week, my son helped me land 2 of the biggest fish that I have ever caught both over 30 lbs., a few fights that almost spooled me, and I am still amazed that a size ten hook can hold on to something that large without giving out. With all the great times and breathtaking moments, It is always peppered with the sense of disgust witnessing the worst treatment of fish that I have ever seen. As I am kind of a newbie to salmon fishing in the river maybe I just never really witnessed it but deplorable it is either way. I have witnessed blatant snagging, "They are still hitting spoons in the pools snagging, all the other excuses along with snagging in the pool that is basically shooting fish in a barrel. Speaking of shooting fish, I found one salmon dead with the end of a crossbow fishing bolt broken off in its head. I pulled it out with some pliers just to figure out what it was. It is amazing the length that people will go to just to get a fish. I am aware the fact that the Chinook die after spawning, the problem is when people are going out and harvesting massive amounts of fish, in one instance 20 fish in one night between two guys, 10 over the limit. Just today I witnessed 4 guys all snagging in the pool and they had three dead fish on the bank. After they left the three fish were still there, left for dead, and four more that were slit, that were not there the night before. These fish are not going to make new fish for us to catch next year and the year after that and the year after that. If we keep this up what are our kids going to be catching? I have called the MNR about 10 times so far and I am fairly certain that they have not shown up once. I do understand that they have a limited amount of officers that patrol my area. And unfortunately they have to split their time between fishing and hunting. I have however taken as many pictures and video that I could and will be forwarding both off to the MNR. The last point I will make is: Clean up after yourself. Each day I go, there is new garbage just left everywhere and each day I clean it up. Never will you see a Lunkerhunt edu-kit laying around waiting to be washed down river. After all this writing I think the pictures paint a better picture then I ever could.