While were on the subject of hooking mortality in the case of adults why not make it illegal to hold a fish out of the water if that fish is being released. I think the mortality rates would go down if the fish was never touched. How many pictures of a 10# steelhead do you need.

Getting back to the subject of bait and juvenile steelhead. You would think people would just like to have the opportunity to fish and not care as much about the gear that they could use. I am with sparkey it doesn't make any sence to have the juveniles killed by bait if there is anyway to avoid it and still allow a recreational fishery. And if the rivers are closed in March and April because of few wild fish the river should be closed until all wild winter runs are through doing there duty.

The time is now to make these hard decisions. If wild winter runs continue to dwindle in the puget sound streams were liable to see a mass reduction in hatchery plants and a complete closure of rivers.
Shouldn't we error on the side of the fish, or are we just worried about our so called "right" to fish.