I'm confused1

Micro -
I believe that Sparkey was proposing bait bans to protect juvenile steelhead. What better studies to use than those on trout . Steelhead juveniles are trout-like and trout size.

Your observations seem to be about hooking site location of adult steelhead (winters). I do have noticed the vast majority of the adultI caught on eggs were hooked in the jaw - non critical areas. However that was standard drifting eggs. However when I fished with no weight, on bait divers, or used prawns, craw-dads or sand shrimp the % hooked in critical areas (tongue , gill, egg, or gullet) goes up.

Virtually all the hooking mortality studies indicate that the mortality that occurs is dominated by were the fish is hooked - ie it is much more likely to die if hooked in a critical area. When spawn-outs or kelts were caught my obseratiions are that the number of fish hooked in critical areas on bait (even drifted eggs) was very similar to that found with trout - over 30%. There has been other discussions of kelts importance to the population elsewhere on this board.

In regards to your issue on the requirement of barbless hooks - I think you are referring to the situation on our marine salmon fisheries. The tribes/commerical don't really care much what we do with our non-salmon freshwater fisheries - a different can of worms if you will.

Stlhead -
I can appreciate your desire for consistent state wide regulations. However should the management be for the most conservative need or tailored to the needs of an individual system. For example in Sparkey's example on the Sky the early June closure was suggested becaused there are still numbers of fish still in the system. On the Sky wild winters begin spawning in early to mid-March, peaks in late April and continues into June. But that varies from system to system. On the Skagit the fish begin spawning in late March/early April, peaks mid-May and continues into July. On some coastal streams spawning begins in February,peaks in early April and ends in late May.

Do we have one size fits all regulation and keep all rivers closed until the 4th of July (protects the Skagit fish)? It seems to me if we want to balance resource protection with fishing opportunity then have some variation is desireable.

Sparkey-
Authors were Pauley and Thomas (U of W). If you can't find a copy give me a call. In another study the incidental steelhead parr caught were included and the mortality on them was the same (again over 30%). I choose to cite the above study as a variety of hooks sizes and lures were included in the same study and both issues seemed to be of concern in this discussion.

I don't know of any estimates of the number of incidental smolts being caught. However consider for a moment - there are about 80,000 steelhead fishers in the state. Lets say that 50% of those use bait (could be more or less) and each catch 10 juvenile steelhed a year that would be 400,000, applying a 35% mortality yields 140,000 dead fish. If those fish would have had typially over-winter survival (50%) than would be 70,000 smolts. Given normal (is there such a thing?) smolt to adult survival that would be the same as 7,000 wild adult steelhead - almost identical to the average number of wild steelhead killed annually state wide in the mid-1990s. Of course that is only an hypothical and the number could be higher or lower - you each can decide for example whether the estimate of 10 juveniles per year per angler is high or low. I also realize that with that number of fish being caught even with artifical lures there would be significant numbers of dead fish - just a whole bunch less than with bait.

In debates on this issue one aspect that is often ignored is the effectiveness of bait. We are passionate about keeping our "eggs" because they are so darn effective for most anglers. Here "eggs" really means all bait and/or scents. That means we are dealing with a situation with both high catch rates and high mortality rates.

Hope some of the above is useful.

Tight lines
Smalma