Salmo G you are probably right and I am sure you have read enough of my posts in the past to know I pretty much always overstate my opinions. I live here in southwest Washington and watched the wild fish down here basically disapear. Down here our steelhead are not ESA listed . It is said thet they are not presently warrented for listing. That is not because there is an abundance of fish. I am not any type of fisheries expert I just know what I have seen happen here and nopw I see it happening there. WDFW is giving in to harvest interests instead of the fished interests just like they always have. I am just tired of it. The whole concept of allowing harvest on a species in long term decline just seems stupid to me especially when there are so many hatchery fish to kill and eat. WSR regulations went into affect down here in 1985 yet there has been no recovery of wild steelhead. Why? because WDFW waited too long until numbers were so low that recovery is not at all likely here.
It wasn't that long ago that the Washougal was consistantly in the top 5 for steelhead harvest in Washington now it only gets a tiken run of hatchery fish and barely a handful of wild fish. Catch and release has worked for decades on on trout streams and bass lakes across the country yet steelhead anglers insist on killing what they catch so WDFW listens to them and maintains the harvest of these fish based on what I believe are political considerations NOT biological ones. If they were looking out for the fish would not the puget sound streams have been closed earlier? The Sandy river is the most popular river in Oregon for winter steelhead and has a very healthy run of wild fish they were protected by WSR long before their numbers were critically low. It's time to do the same everywhere. As far as I am concerned the ends justify the means on this issue. EVERY wild fish we can get on the spawning bet is a great thing 30001 spawning steelhead is better that 3000. EVERY FISH COUNTS!