For clarification, I don't believe that sportsmen have absolutely no impact at all, I'm just uncertain as to whether the impact sportsmen have is actually noticeable. First, I would like to know how the department came up with the 5% mortality figure. In the years I've been steelheading, I've never seen a native steelhead released where I questioned whether or not it would survive. I'm not just talking about the fish I personally have caught, but all the ones I have actually seen. None of them were bleeding, none of them were handled roughly, all were released as quickly as possible, etc. I probably haven't seen as many released as the majority of you, but I believe it's safe to say that of all the steelhead I've seen released, there is a 0% mortality factor.

Now, back to impact. Obviously, if even one fish is killed, there's an impact. Whether or not it's actually meaningful is something else. I think we need to distinquish between impact and meaningful impact. Obviously, if only one fish in a river dies, the impact will not be meaningful because even if there are only 100 fish in the river, there will still be enough to spawn and propogate the run. When I say sportsmen don't have an impact, I mean we don't have a meaningful impact. Like I stated before. Remove sportsmen completely out of the picture and the runs will still decline. By my definition, that's not meaningful. Obviously we all have our own definitions though.