Rob: Your plan seems like heaven. In many ways it mirrors B.C. They have a few rivers, like the Vedder, heavily planted for intense sport catch and kill fisheries and to support commercial and native fisheries. Most of their river have no hatcheries whatsoever and they are doing fine. Some like the Thompson are catch and release only. Others have limited catch and kill fisheries for salmon with total catch and release for steelhead. It’s a sensible plan. Now try to get anything, like universal supper for it.

Those who are opposed to any catch and release fisheries seem unaware of the huge numbers of anglers who actually prefer it. Both the Yakima and the Sky saw large increases in the number of anglers once total catch and release was in place. (In the Sky. I’m referring to the spring catch and release steelhead fishery.) It’s not some sort of elitist fishery if more anglers use it than they did when it was catch and kill. Those who need to kill a fish could still do so in one of the rivers heavily planted for that purpose.