Good question but historically bag limits are not very effective at limiting overall catch, particularly with salmon and steelhead in freshwater.

Case in point - I fish for steelhead regularly but I haven’t caught a single fish in three years. So WDFW could set the steelhead bag limit at 100 fish/day, but it won’t mean anything if I can’t catch even one.

Under some circumstances, a daily bag limit will limit overall catch, but it’s not often the average angler has to quit because they’ve hit the daily limit. The regular exception would be those 10% of anglers who catch 90% of the fish. Perhaps you fall into this category, but 90% of anglers don’t (including me).

But your overall point is correct. When hatchery fish are forecast to be plentiful, and could overlap with wild fish, WDFW will set the bag limit quite high. Another example - Kalama River in fall 2014. WDFW forecast a huge return of hatchery coho to the Kalama in 2014. And the run showed up exactly as forecast. The bag limit was set at 6 fish per day. And I was catching six coho per day, without really trying. And I wasn’t alone either. Lots of anglers did the same.