Smalma,

before putting up my opinions on this, I'll add a few more things (beyond the good stuff that's already posted) that I believe should be considered in this discussion.

1. history tells us that preseason run-size forecasts for wild steelhead are usually wrong; this situation isn't likely to change anytime soon

2. even the complete elimination of fishing can't guarantee that we'll bring depleted steelhead populations back from very low numbers, or keep our "healthy" stocks from dropping like most of the others. In the long run, eliminating fishing might even be the last straw for declining stocks because steelheaders are among the few special interest groups that (sometimes?) demand political protection for healthy rivers and ecosystems. And political protection is critical.

What we also know is that there is no doubt that fish that aren't harvested will very likely increase the number of spawners.

So, how to fit these and other considerations into a WSR management plan ... my feeling is that an improved management plan would allow for a lot of "slop" (prediction errors) in the system, and would focus on keeping harvest rates (either direct or indirect from CnR mortality) to no more than ~10% for each component of the run size. There's nothing magic about 10% other than it's a lot smaller number than the typical ~40% target for MSY management, and ~10% should be adequate to account for "indirect CnR harvest" while allowing ample fishing opportunities.

As for season timing for wild winter runs, spreading the impacts favors the highest "CnR harvest" during the times of the highest returns (March-April), rather than limiting the fishing and impacts to Nov-Feb to coincide with most hatchery returns. One consequence of past fishing practices has been very high harvest rates on the early returning wild fish, but much lower harvest rates on the March-April returns. This kind of fishing has surely reshaped the populations by squashing the relatively small-numbered early returners, and those early fish may be very important to the long-term health of the population.

I am also a firm believer that status quo approaches are not in the best interests of fishers or the fish. If regional trends in wild steelhead abundance (over the past 50 years) continue, it's seems like a safe bet that we're looking at statewide emergency closures due to low escapements in the very near future. We're only a few river systems away from that situation today, and so far we have a pretty poor track record for reversing steep declines in wild steelhead numbers. There are exceptions (Deer Creek comes to mind...), but not many, not yet at least.

The long term solution to turning the long-term downtrends around has to include agressive actions to restore and protect habitat in streams and estuaries, as well to change the hatchery and harvest practices that are shrinking the abundance and diversity of our wild fish populations. Reducing harvests is a quick but clearly limited start on what needs to be a much bigger effort.