Not a new position for me. Personally, I'll always look at steelhead as a sport / game fish that I will not harvest. However, your references of streams with a directed harvest carry concentrations of fish that ours to shame.

And as I mentioned, even though the regs say you can take one, over 98% of the fish are released. That's hardly the case here. The sporties' attitudes are different here: whether it be that because the state says it's oaky, it's oaky, or the attitude amongst some that if "I don't get them the Indians will".

Unfortuately, I guarantee you that a large number of anglers in this area DO NOT adhere to the daily / seasonal guidelines that have put into place.

That's another factor with our fisheries, we have terrible enforcement, and I'm a believer that beacause of it, giving some an inch means they're gonna take a mile.

Enforcement in these Alaskan streams is far greater than what we see here. You don't have dozens of plunkers lined up on lower river bars whacking and stacking them in the Alaska streams. Knowing what happens in real life as opposed to what's on paper is just pne more reason I'd like to see the door shut on it.

The Anchor River, the only SC stream with a really appreciable run of fish is strictly C&R, so is the Ninilchik and Deep Creek. Anglers can keep a steelhead in portions of the Kasilof ... but these are an introduced fish to the system. The few fish that return to Crooked Creek (a Kasilof trib) are protected and the small harvest that does is occur is based on the "natural spawn" following the heavy plants of hatchery steelhead in the 80's into the early 90's. This stocking was eliminated because of straying into the nearby Kenai and the concern over that.

So what harvest is alllowed is basically on hatchery stock.

If the state could prove beyond any doubt that are the runs are healthy, MAYBE I could live with seeing a limited harvest, although as I mentioned before, I don't believe that I'll ever kill another one on purpose.

And this gets me back to my original point. The state says our runs are healthy and can support harvest, yet one by one, stocks fall from a healthy listing to depressed or worse and then all fishing must cease. Our management practices have failed ... it's time to put a finger in the dike to give us time to figure out why and do something about it!