I tend to ageee with Smalma's last post. Nice to see actual facts that I am familiar with. Had no idea my snide comment from last week would create such a productive thread.

His quote about the quality of non-bait fisheries brings it all home for me.

"In fact in almost every anadromous stream that I'm aware of that is closed to fishing, where the use of bait is prohibited, or has little fishing pressure resident rainbow trout are found. Not only are there trout in these waters they often live to surprising ages (up 10 years) and large size (multiple pounds)."

almost every stream with legendary and healthy (not what WDFW calls healthy) runs of wild steel (think B.C. and Oregon) has a general bait ban or some type of selective gear rules.

In my experience I have definitely found better anadromous and resident fisheries in rivers with bait bans. And no worm containers!!!