Nativepride,
Thankyou for replying back to my post on fishtraps.
I can understand fully the right you have to keep your fair share of wild fish and utilize them as you wish. As a sportsman I have no right to ask you to stop harvesting wild steelhead when we are allowed to continue killing them. Even if new rules do go into effect that would prohibit sportfishing from killing wild fish I still believe in the reality that you are entittled to your share of wild fish.
What I care for is to see the wild steelhead comeback in strong numbers not so much so I can bonk them or C&R them but because they belong in our rivers as nature intended them to be. I realize there are many factors keeping the numbers of fish down and an entire release by all is not the total solution just a start for a healthy place for all of us to live and work.
By using modern fishtraps and giving you top price for hatchery fish it is my hope that you would more than make up dollar wise for releasing wild fish. I do not want to see you loose the right to harvest wild fish but hope that you can see that for now to kill them with so few of them left will not contribute to a healthy world.
I would like to see someday a world and our rivers included a place that we all worked hard to make a better place to work and play and that you would be able to harvest if so desired only wild fish because the rivers are healthy again and hatchery fish are a thing of the sad past.
Steve Wrye