I too try to stay out of this stuff these days (as my presence tends to get some folks riled), so I'll try to just put in my two cents and then go away.

First, it's an interesting but almost meaningless question. What's going on on the Quillayute is not necessarily reflective of angler attitudes and practices statewide. I'm not a statistician, but it seems to me that theoretically, if 100% of anglers on the Quillayute kept 100% of the legal fish they caught, 60% of anglers statewide could still be supporting and practicing C&R. (I'd also be interested, like sinktip, to see the survey design; it should probably surprise no one here that I'm skeptical of WDFW's interpretation of almost any data.)

Secondly, without meaning to put too fine a point on it, so what? Whatever the "constituency" believes that it "wants" does not relieve the state of its responsibility to manage wild fish resources for the conservation of the resource itself above the desires of anglers.

(Well, looking over this post, I have to be fair and admit that maybe it's not just my "presence" that makes some of you so mad. any room in that cave, sinktip?)

Ramon Vanden Brulle,
Communications Director
Washington Trout