"Should a conservative stance be taken and some error on the side of the fish?"

I really don't know Rich. If someone else is nailing all of our steelhead, would a c&r fishery help solve our problem? Most likely not! It would certainly allow whoever was targeting them to continue targeting them until the last ones are gone!

I have no problem with c&r if it could be shown that it would really help the problem, but there is absolutely no science that I am aware of to support it. Personally, I think there is a lot more going on out there than what meets the eye. How can anyone manage a fish when no one knows what's happening to them?

C&R may be a noble thing to do, but may not be the best answer. It just seems to me that there was always 4 times more salmon then there where steelhead, so it wouldn't take to long for someone, someplace, or some other condition to take its toll on our wild steelhead fish. It could even be that one of there "sources of food" of steelhead are being targeted, and that they just can't survive in enough numbers anymore to be self sustaining.

It could be that they are falling prey to some other specie; it could be a combination of many different things. Can any one come up with the science to show that a c&r fishery can or would stop there decline?

As much as our board members may hate to admit it, wild steelhead recovery may already be beyond the point of recovery; and it could all be from causes, reasons and sources that we don't even know exist. It's extremely possible that all steelhead may some day be looking to our hatcheries for there survival as a specie! Hatcheries saving steelhead instead of destroying them…what a switch that one would be!

Anyway you look at Rick, it looks pretty bleak unless someone can pin point what the real problem for there decline is. It's kind of like trying to develop a cure for a disease, when you don't even know what the disease is.

Cowlitzfisherman