I just wanted to get out a couple of thoughts that I have had concerning river gill netting.
I moved here from Oregon, near Portland, fished all over that state and always had a WA liscence and love to fish all over this state as well. I work in the restaurant business and see first hand the buying and selling of fish. What I am getting at is the fact that supply and demand plays a huge part in the success of capitalism as it stands in America.
In Oregon, the sale of any wild steelhead is strictly forbidden, only farmed steelhead may be sold, on the retail market. Go to Pike Place Market tomorrow and you will see huge piles of gill net caught wild and hatchery steelhead, from your favorite peninsula river( imagine what you will see in 1 or 2 monthes when all the big natives arrive), selling probably for $3.99 to $4.99 a pound. The Indians are getting maybe $1 a pound, but the wholesalers are making the real money, all at the expense of our dwindling precious resource. If we can eliminate the demand, then we should see the supply slow as well.

I would love to see an effort here in WA to make illegal the sale of wild caught steelhead, make it illegal to wholesale wild caught steelhead to other states as well. This obviously would be very contraversial, but I think that given the current state of things and the element of change in our state government, that it is possible. We need to move towards sustainable harvest methods, and gill nets are not one of them. Sorry for being long winded, but I feel that this is very important and that we all need to stir the pot, so to speak.
tight lines to all, boycott wild steelhead sales!