Continuation of the thred started by DHaul and added to by Bob and hawk. . .

I agree with Bob and share the same concern as DHaul.

I think post-spawn fish are to be left alone, to enhance their chances of coming back for another round in a future year. Consider the population dynamics of future runs of steelhead. The more of these fish we harrass now, the more we select out potential re-spawner genetics in the future gene pool (ie. that's bad).

Having fished for years in both the Great Lakes and Pacific NW, I strongly feel there is a different ethic regarding fishing for spawners and post-spawn fish. Most steelheading in the midwest is done by "sight fishing" in the spring. This typically consists of looking for spawning fish on redds and then either antagonizing them to bite or "lining" them or overtly snagging them. 90% of the midwestern steelheaders would have no idea of how to catch a steelhead if they did not see the fish on a redd. I think this is a major regional difference in ethic. This is fine conduct for Lake Okeechobee bucketmouth bass, but give me a break, steelhead are different.

Two independent factors contribute to this difference, and complicate making a judgement in my mind. First, as pointed out, the GL steelhead aren't "native" fish, but rather were stocked from western runs years ago. I think that is a cop-out in trying to justify the regional ethic difference. The wildly reproducing GL steel should be elevated to a similar status, and similarly respected. A step in the right direction would be uniform fin-clipping of hatchery clones so we can tell the difference on the water, and release all the wild ones.

A second complicating factor, as hawk points out, is the different structure of watersheds and geology in the midwest. Many of the steelhead fisheries in the GL are conducted on tiny streams compared to the big waterways of the PacNW. Shutting down the spawning reaches to fishing (as is done in much of the PacNW) is not possible in the midwest, because that would encompass the entire watershed in many instances. That doesn't happen, and subsequently, most of the good GL fisheries occur within the best spawning habitat, during the heart of the spring run. This is what lots of folks call "pounding the redds".

It's probably substantially more complicated than all this, but in my opinion, there's a major regional ethics gap, and that disappoints me.

What do y'all think?