Duroboat 15:

Salmo does not need me to answer for him, but I felt the need to respond to your disdain for the Yellowstone River example. I am old enough to remember the days when literally hundreds of anglers hammered those Yellowstone Cutthroat. They kill as many as 500 fish a day and guess what, the fishery almost collapsed. Now we have proof that for more than 30 years the system can and does provide thousands of days of recreational activity and still maintain a healthy population of wild trout. No it has not been netted but the sport kill was huge, perhaps equivalent to tribal netting.

Other more recent and more relevant examples include many B.C. rivers. The Vedder has tremendous angling pressure, higher than any river I have ever fished in Washington. Yet, in part because of C&R for wild fish the wild fish runs have remained strong. I think the Vedder is an example of how we can have our cake and eat it too. They plant approx 120,000 eight inch smolts each year and get back about 5,000 adult hatchery fish, which may be killed when caught, in addition the wild fish component has stayed healthy, in part because, they are not kept and killed. (The C&R ethic is so strong in B.C. that many anglers release hatchery fish too. This allows multiple catches of the same fish, which to me equals greater opportunity.)