Salama
I don't disagree with anything you have said, however. We have 0 ability to improve the ocean enviroment. There is 0 ability because of political concerns, for us to do much with tribal harvest, commercial harvest and in most cases freshwater habitat.
The only thing we can address in any meaningful way is sport harvest.

It is my firm belief that it will take a comprehensive approach to save our wild fish however i see absolutely no political will to do so in any government agency or any elected official.. I have 0 faith in any of the managment agencies. I do mean 0.
Salmon revovery is a complex problem with very simple answers. The problem is that no one is willing to step up to the plate and do what needs to be done.
The Bio's at NMFS came up with the 4 h's and they were absolutely dead on with that. However no one is following through on any of it.

Hydro.. BPA spends millions on various fish bypass systems only hoping that they will work. They don't care if they work at all they just have to spend X amount of dollars to say they tried. So basically hydro is not being addressed in a meaningful way.

Habitat.. some habitat is being restored but not enough to compensate for habitat that is still being developed and destroyed. and Most habitat projects have coincided with hatchery plants which totally negates any benefit of the habitat restoration to begin with. Most habitat restoration is done in the same manner as the hydro is addressed.. Make an areal look good and say we tried with very little actual benefit to wild fish.. So basically the habitat card is not being afddressed..

Harvest.. Columbia river tangle net fishery for spring chinook catches 20,000 wild winter steelhead.. enough said harvest is not being addressed in any meaningful way.

Hatcheries... nearly every steelhead river in the state is pumped full of hatchery fish. I have seen nothing to indicate any government agency is doing anything to address the impacts of hatchery fish on wild fish. If anything the agencies are trying to increase hatchery programs by passing them off to the tribes and letting them do what they want.. So no one is addressing hatchery issues..

All this leads me to believe that there is no will in any government agency to save these fish. As far as i am concerned they are and have been failing at their jobs for decades.
managers in WDFW need to be fired because they have failed so miserably . If this were the private sector these people doing extremely poor jobs would have been canned years ago.
I have no faith at all in anyone in managment positions in any of the govorning agencies. They do not have the best interests of the fish in mind. They are the enemy..
I cannot find words strong enough to convey how i feel about these people. some of them should be in jail for their gross mismanagment of our resources.

So when it comes to regs if i can get a few people to stop killing wild fish then by God thats the right thing to do..
anyone opposed to WSR year around without exception hates wild steelhead and wants them to go extinct. This issue is black and white..

Salama
Montana was great.. great things happen when you have catch and release going on over naturally reproducing stocks of wild fish. Even in completely dewatered, damed up streams with cattle running through them..
None of my anger is towards you at all just venting frustration. I agree with most everything you say just at this point WSR is better than nothing..

an interesting note about the Washougal...

the wild summer steelhead run collapsed at a time directly correlating to the opening of and the increased production at the Skamania hatchery. They planted fish, people came to catch them. People caught the wild ones and took them home and the hatchery fish spawning in the wild took care of the rest. Habitat has imporved since the 60's and wild steelhead release regs were adopted in 1985. The wild summer steelhead still have not recovered. The problem is not harvest, not hydro, not habitat.. whats left? THE HATCHERY!
That is the only thing preventing the recovery of wild summer steelhead in the Washougal.
in my stupid little opinion