If I'm not mistaken fish traps and wheels were banned in the 1930's in Washington. The indians used mainly set gear types like fish traps (banned), wiers (banned) and reef nets (still legal) until they were prevented from doing so by the state and feds. The lummi's still use some reef nets in the san juans.

Allowing the use of permanent set gear like traps or weirs is a double edged sword. Granted they can be used to fish selectively, but they are also considerably more efficient--this could more easily lead to overharvests.

In my perfect world all hatchery fish would be clipped and both the tribes and sportfishers would be required to use selective gear and release all wild fish in any areas with threatened wild stocks.

Given the expense of set gear like traps, I think we'd have to subsidize the building of fish traps and weirs to make this work politically speaking