Dave -
What I said was: "In nearly every case where a population has been limited by harvest the population abundance rebounds when that harvest pressure is removed. " That doesn't mean that I don't feel that over harvest isn't a problem.

The situation of the Skagit bull trout illustrate my point in the above quote. When the amount of harvest was reduced (with the regulation changed that protected the fish through their first spawning) in 1990 the population responded very positively - a 10 fold increase in the number of spawners since. Harvest was limiting the population and it responded with increased abundance when harvest was reduced.

However contrast that with the situation with Puget Sound steelhead where there has been little or no improvement in run sizes in rivers that have been closed or had extremely limited wild fish harvest. An example would be the Snohomish wild winter steelhead where in spite of extremely low harvest impacts (less than 3.5% - commercial and recreational impacts combined) the fish continue to return at less than 0.5 fish per spawner in the parent brood year.

We see much the same thing in many of the chinook populations in Puget Sound where harvest rates (as I'm sure any salmon fisher can attest) have been greatly reduced without much postive response in escapements. An example would be the North Fork Nooksck spring chinook where reduced fishing and the use of a supplementation hatchery prgram has not increased the number of naturally produced chinook above a couple hundred fish. This is spite of the natural escapement increasing to thousands of fish (due to the supplemental fish).

In both of the above examples the popualtions clearly are being limited by factors other than harvest and harvest reductions have bought them little relief.

Tight lines
S malma