Here's another little tidbit or two about how Oregon manages to have fishing that doesn't entirely suck.

Oregon has real land use laws, things like "thou shalt not build in the 100 year flood plain", and 40 acre minimum lot size except in the urban growth boundary where it is 160 acres minimum This concentrates growth in the urban boundary where infrastructure development, such as stormwater, rapid transit, and sewage treatment is required as a condition of development. This results in no urban sprawl, preserves farm and forest land, and prevents fragmentation of habitat. Oregon watersheds are much more intact and healthy that ours as a result, and so are their fish runs for some strange reason

The second thing they do right is raise hatchery steelhead with wild timing, saving a portion of the return out of each couple of weeks and releasing fish that return and spawn the entire season, instead of 2 weeks of scrawny brats like we have. I have caught bright hatchery and wild fish side by side from December 1 through the end of March, except for the adipose clip and occasional wrinkled dorsal they are identical. They also of course select brood from wild parents, minimizing hatchery dilution of the gene pool. Yes, hatchery fish still spawn with wild fish, but the damage is minimized as the fish are not genetically damaged from repeated inbreeding.

Of course WSR and no tribal netting helps tremendously, steelhead have indeed recovered on the Sixes and Elk enough to allow some kill - dumb idea in my opinion - but I guess this can be dropped at the first sign of a downturn in return, and it will be interesting to be able to quantify what effect this has.

BTW, I lived in Oregon for 12 years and watched fishing go completely to hell before land use, improved hatchery practices, and WSR came to be and saved the day. Ours in Washington will go completely to hell too, if it's not there already, before anyone does anything. Any nobody will do anything unless they hear about it. Write those letters and raise hell