WOW!!!

I had a few chances during the day to peak at this thread at workd...I wish I would have had the opputunity to make a couple posts to keep this thread on track...

As Brian L. mentioned, this thread has nothing to do with fly vs. gear...whoever it was that brought that up, is being seriously ignorant of the issues at hand.

Secondly, I am in no way giving up on the wild winter run, yet. The past few years have been dreadful for Puget Sound wild steelhead...these ideas are based upon the recent years and the predictions for this year.

A prominent biologist/manager with the WDFW (you know who you are ) made a comment within the past couple weeks that if closing down the C&R seasons and the now mandatory wild steelhead release regulations are not followed by a rebound in our wild steelhead escapements in Puget Sound, more drastic measures will need to be taken!!!!!

I am assuming those drastic measures will involve a complete shut down of our fisheries in the winter...do you want that??...I dont think so...I sure as Hell dont!!

So now we are at a crossroads...we need to take more drastic steps to help prevent the most drastic step of all will not need to be taken.

What the Hell is wrong with not fishing with bait in the summer??...there is an obvious mortality rate differance between bait and no bait and barbed hooks and barbless hooks...anyone who disagrees with that are not ignorant, they are not naive...they are MORONS! Wake up!!!!!!

There has been little disagreement over keeping the river closed over an extended period of time...so we do agree that that is a measure that should be taken if need be??....or how about a compromise? (using the Skykomish as an example), keep the standard June 1st opening but make it single barbless hooks and no bait...usually the river is faily high at that time...by elimanting the use of bait, you are going to eliminate the catch of wild winter steelhead.

I am not proposing this compromise as a permanent nor am I proposing that the late opener become a standard regulation...

I just feel that if we are closing the rivers in March and April to protect wild winter steelhead (rivers that are under selective fishery regs at the time when open) and then allowing a gauntlet of fisherman (non-selective fishery) have at them for a couple weeks in June, we are not protecting the population...in fact the regulations of the first couple weeks of June directly contradict the closures of March and April.

...sacrifice some now OR everything later...