Thanks for the response Salmo....

You've correctly pointed out something that always seems counter-intuitive to most of us--that there's not much of a correlation between the run-size of parents and the subsequent run-size of their progeny above a certain threshold. But I can't help but think that with all other things held equal, in a management regime of MSY/MSH, in an arena where there is often not enough data to make prudent fisheries management decisions, and in an arena where politics wields influence, that mandatory C&R would provide the following benefits:

- increase the temporal spread of wild-runs, i.e. increase the number of early-returners (perhaps not on the Skagit because of flows)

- provide some buffer from the effects of overharvest when run-size predictions are overestimated

- Increase genetic diversity and robustness since C&Red fish would readily compete on the spawning grounds (as you already stated)

- Allow more fishing opportunities during periods of poor ocean survival, particularly when these years are strung together

- In general, provide more of a buffer to MSY/MSH, which is chronically proned to overharvest

KORE

Maybe theres the coast and the rest of the steelhead world. I don't know. But I'm not sure if "balance" of harvest opportunities would shift if harvest were defined as Salmo defined it above. And why wouldn't it? If we fished for the table only, it wouldn't be called sport, it would be called subsistence. And it would be cheaper to drive to the grocery. It seems to me that that provides enough legal impetus to define sport harvest as "utilization" and leave the allocation numbers alone.


[This message has been edited by obsessed (edited 03-27-2001).]