Wow, what a shock!, I have taken off a few months from the board. I am in MT and find that I only get extremely pissed cause I can't be there.

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the logic(or lack thereof) that banning bait will prevent stripping native hens of eggs. I have also heard that fish tend to swallow bait more than w/o bait.

As painful as it would be to give up bait, I have caught near to as many fish with just corkies or jigs/worm. Would it be such a terrible thing to give bait up on a river that we all love so much? Maybe like the upper river ( as suggested) If it helped the fish? If it meant preventing some idiot from killing a nate hen just for the eggs, I guess I could deal with it. I do agree w/sthldr1 that people tend to forget habitat restoration. and those damn kayakers ( just kidding) that want to remove logjams from the upper river Maybe the bait ban is just a scape goat.
I will be curious to see what happens