"unofficial support of those against the CNR issue"

I am confused. When have I ever specifically supported a person or group in a debate against wild steelhead release?

I only position I ever recall stating is a position that is consistent with the published national position statement from the national RFA newsletter. I have stated it online, and I have presented written comment of such to the commission. Beyond that I have not done any lobbying on the issue one way or the other.

I think I recall that at one time I may have posted that I did not want to take an official stance, quite a long time ago. I quite honestly don't remember if I actually posted it, but at one time that was my thinking. But then the organization got pressure to take a stance, both locally and from national. So we did.

The only other thing I have done is stated what I believed to be factual information pertaining to the issue a few months ago on another message board. I did not intend to show any bias and if bias was perceived, well, that's out of my control.

Before I get to opportunity... I have not, to this point, targeted wild steelhead. I have been present in a boat when one has been caught and I advocated its release even though it was legal to keep it. That is personally where I am at right now.

Opportunity:
There are a significant amount of people out there who define opportunity as eating what they catch. To them, releasing a fish is what you do if you caught something undersized, or the wrong species, or it was too dark. I am not telling everyone to feel this way, but this is how things really are. Eliminating them from their opportunity eliminates them from the fishery, and in some cases, the sport.

On the other hand, allowing them to retain fish does not result in loss of opportunity to those who wish to release fish, unless there is also poor management of the fishery as well. In that case, the logical step is to fix the management, not the angler.

We are fundamentally opposed to removing anyone from the sport. It is contrary to everything we are trying to accomplish.

One last point, we were getting to nearly %100 release anyway. As the survey pointed out, the voluntary release rates had grown substantially in a small amount of time. That kind of progress is dynamic, it does not move at the same rate every year. In a few years we would probably be at over 90% release voluntarily.