While most of this talk has been about the boating restrictions, I am a bit more concerned with the Selective rules. While it may make sense in some basins to promote this later on, there is no need for it in December in most rivers. Last week I was stopped for a a couple of hours on one of the effected rivers. I was joined by two other guys as I walked in. We all stopped at a well known hole and spread out a little bit, trading places as we through jigs, spinners and the floated some bait. After an hour they moved on and I switched up to some eggs behind a spin n- glow. On the third cast a mint bright hatchery coho came flying up and slammed the rig as I as pulling it in. We had worked it over hard and had seen nothing. The other two guys walked down and I helped one of them pull another out hatchery fish in a few minutes later on the same eggs drifted bare. In the between a jack came flying up chasing the eggs but bit short. I am almost positive nothing else would have worked other than the eggs, which produced fairly quick. In an extreme case, I have a friend who was working a hatchery hole a few years back. There were 10 or so guys hitting it hard and no one had a fish all day. About an hour before dark he remembered he had some prawns in his bag. The next hour he hooked a fish almost every cast, while no one else had a hit. They were debating whether it really was the prawns so he tossed one over to the guy next to him. First cast and it was fish on.
I hate that they are taking away options before they need to.