Gsiegel-
One of the sources of my confusion was how dramatically the CnR rate had delcined from last year. Is for some reason more anglers not reporting their released catches?

It would be interesting to look at what portion of the people catching wild fish are released all the wild fish caught. An example - say a person keeps his first wild fish and continues fishing hoping for a hatchery fish and in doing so catches and release 2 more wild fish. Clearly 2/3 of the fish were released but he has kept what he could legally - he is a wild fish releaser or a "bonker"?

Mooch -
If you are interested in where I'm coming from and what my ideas on steelhead management you might want to look at an old post -"Steelhead guidelines" from about a year ago (late Feb/early March of 2002).

Todd -
I understand where inaccuracies of the numbers might come from but as mentioned above "why the change this year?" Is it as suggested by others that without the usual number of hatchery fish and some folks replacing them by "bonking" the occassional wild fish?

I'm not surprised that early season anglers were mostly locals and that they are mostly interested in keep some fish. The is the situation on virtually every river I'm familiar with. You mentioned the Skykomish. On those seasons where the taking of wild fish was allowed as I recalled the majority of the wild fish caught were kept. Remember there is a lot of fish that goes on downstream of the Sky and most aren't interesting in playing with the fish.

I'm sure that Plunker would confirm that the vast majority of the anglers fishing the lower half of the Skagit (up stream to Lyman) are very interested in retaining a wild fish or two. When WDW had creel census on the Skagit consistently 50 to 60% of the anglers counted on any given day (Dec to March) were on that section of the river.

It is my observation that CnRs tend to be more mobile than those interesting in keeping fish. While there are lots of exceptions but as a rule plunkers tend to stay close to home while CnR steelhead bums tend to show up where ever the best fishing is (that may or may not be water with restrictive regulations). The result is those areas (often late season) have pressure skewed to the CnR crowd - doesn't prove that is the preferred management. If the Skykomish were made fly fishing only I would expect it would be very popular with the feather fling crowd and it would attract anglers from over the place - however that would be evidence that fly only is the preference of most Sky steelhead anglers or the state steelhead anglers.

No I do not expect to be at the WSC meeting. Expect both Bob G. and WSC membership will not have any difficultly in stating their respective positions. Listen carefully to what Bob has to say with an open mind, ask good questions and some learning may occur.

Tight lines
Smalma