CFM

Sorry for the confusion I accidentally omitted the word not.

What I meant to say was

The people who will not obey the law are the same people who already don’t obey it and this is NOT an enforceable law in my opinion.

We could argue this point all year and probably never reach an agreement so I would like to leave it at this. I probably do not fish as many rivers as you but on the Sky, Snoqualmie, and Snohomish I could catch and release as many fish as I wanted and no warden would be the wiser. Why? Because only one trip in a hundred do I see a game warden and NEVER have I run across one in ten years of fishing these river systems while playing, landing or being in the possession of a fish. Only been stopped once in all that time, there is just not enough of them to enforce the laws, especially a law that you must be caught in the act of releasing a fish. It’s not like you are pulling up to the launch and trying to take illegal fish home, the evidence would have already been released.

“You know, there is another way that WDFW can also control "hatchery fish". They could make it illegal to "release" a hatchery fish if they really wanted to control all hatchery fish. That way the "wild" guys would either have to keep their catch, or punch their "wild" card when they landed a fish. Either way, the hatchery fish would be taken out of the rivers and the wild fish catch could be recorded. Now what are you going to spin on that one? “

I may have missed your point on this one but here is my go at it. I am not concerned about the hatchery fish being taken out of the rivers. They are there to bonk for a good dinner and if someone wants to release a hatchery fish then so be it. I am not convinced that the hatchery fish do as much harm to the native stock as some may say. I think the native fish are on the decline from being over fished. Sorry if I did not answer your question on this issue I was not sure what you were driving at.

As far as recording all hatchery fish on a card that is a GREAT idea. If you try to charge people for it I think people may try and fudge the system. I personally like the idea of recording all native fish on a card; this would give the management in charge of our catch and release season some REAL data to go off of.

Well it’s my bedtime, talk to ya in the morning