Rich -
Your lack of familarity of many of the issues of steelhead management state wide is showing. To my knowledge in just the north puget Sound area catch and release seasons designed to provide anglers increased opportunities at wild winter steelhead was first put into place in 1977 on the North Fork Nooksack. The second opportunity was the Sauk which went into place in 1980. Seasons on the Skagit, Skykomish and North Fork Stillaguamish soon followed.

WSR regulations were first applied again in the North Puget Sound region in 1983 on the North Fork Stillaguamish during the summer to protect the Deer Creek fish - this was prior to having marked fish and a large minimum size limit was used (the limit was 30" based on infomation indicating that 99% of the wild fish were less than 30"). Widespread use of WSR began in 1984 on basically all the Puget Sound rivers.

As you can see CnR and WSR has been around for sometime and each of the those seasons referred to above originated within WDFW. Each recieved very little support for the steelhead anglers and in somecases very vocal dissent from anglers - the "urban legend" of the time was that released fish would not survive.

If you desire is end all gill netting of steelhead you need new federal legislation. I don't think that is likely but I wish the best in that effort. In the interim do you have a concrete suggestion for escapement goals and under what conditions impacts from a recreational fishing would be allowed? From what I have read to date my interpretation of what management would look like under your ideas would be no fishing on wild fish anywhere in the state with the possible exception of a couple of places currently under management that allow wild harvest. My interpretation of what you have stated is no fishing on runs less than carrying capacity.

Tight lines
Smalma