I'm not one to bash WDFW for personal reasons, and I suppose the herky-jerky nature of their fish management strategy may have a lot to do with the fact that they have no permanent Fish Program manager in Region 6, and cannot hire one, nor personnel to monitor the fishery properly, because of the budget shortfall and hiring freeze, but really, most everyone could see this developing over a month ago, and well before they decided to continue to allow harvest of wild fish. For that I'll bash 'em

Man, they had better knock off the tangle net BS in the Columbia - they are just knocking the hell out of the wild steelhead and catching very few springers - hell, unless the fish has a big kype it won't tangle very well anyway. But the real issue is economics - if they have to shut the Columbia down to sportfishing early because they overharvested commercially it will be an economic travesty, exactly as it will be on the OP if they close the steelhead fishery, even for C&R. Commercial salmon fishing is a #%*$^% waste economically, and should never be allowed when there is a viable sport fishery - numerous economic studies place the per-fish value 5 to 15 times higher for a sport over a commercial fish. Sport fishermen also outnumber commercials thousands to one. With no economic or political reason for it, why is there a commercial salmon/steelhead fishery anyway