Someone want to complain about smolts dying then they should take a look at the saltwater. Go downrigging sometime with a flasher and a spoon off Seattle for silvers. You will especially with siwash hooks kill more smolts than silvers.
So should this form of fishing be banned?

Certain rivers at certain times apparently have a huge number of smolts present and they bite at hardware too and die incidentally. Well maybe we should close that river during that time period.

Should CNR fishing be allowed anywhere there are Federally listed species present?

Was I wrong in getting the lower portions of the Duckabush and Dosewallips closed to all fishing inorder to keep the "River Runs Through It" crowd off the rivers where they claimed to be legally fishing for cutts and summers while they were actually targetting summer chums and in odd numbered years depressed runs of pinks? They were having a blast unknowingly killing these poor salmon stocks in their cnr fishery. Like it or not guys..it wasn't bait, nets, or seals that were punishing the remnants of these runs...it was those who claimed the socalled "highest ground." I hated to do it but I'm proud of the results.

What it comes down to is be careful which "throne of righteousness" you choose to claim....it may not be what you think it to be.
Our choice to fish by any method carries with it a knowledge that we will cause the mortality of some portion of what we prize the most. I live with my self realization every day I fish or hunt. Anything else is hypocracy.