Folks please keeping in mind that Wild Steelhed Release (WSR) is a management scheme designed to allow access to hatchery fish while holding impacts to wild stocks to just hooking mortality (hopefully a low impact).

Does that mean when there are no or few hatchery fish around (say after March first on those systems planted with early hatchery fish) that there should be no fishing? After all there would be few or no hatchery fish tp be caught.

On fisheries targeting wild stocks (spring CnR seasons etc) the hooking mortality associated with such fishing is just another form of harvest. A fish killed during fishing whether bonked or release is a dead fish and will not spawn. How does one reconcile the position of allowing no wild fish harvest due to the biological need of the population with allowing wild fish impacts during a CnR fishery?

Not sure that I see a biological difference between allowing say 10% harvest on a run above escapement levels and allowing a fishery with a 10% hooking mortality from a CnR fishery on the same run.

Tight lines
Smalma