I think Jacob answered your question for you early in this thread Geoduck ...

Why are some streams that are not doing quite so well still open to kill?

If it takes a blanket policy to stop the trend of fishing until the fish are all gone then I'm all for it.

The Hoh is perhaps the best example. It has not met escapement in a number of years .. however, had there been a WSR policy in place on that stream, it's more than likely the reduction in sports impact would have allowed the river to make the goal. Wonder why I've spent less time there in the past few years than I used to? The fish aren't there in the numbers they used to be, plain and simple!

And because we have our own blanket policy in place to judge the health of the run my a magic little number on the Quillayute system, I think the "new blanket" is appropriate because of the poor health of the first half of the run.

Perhaps over the next two years we can look at the little things that the models don't really seem to address and go from there.

I'd also like to address Grandpa's mention of the difference between the "... angler who is lucky to catch and keep a couple of wild steelhead on an Op river or the guide and his customers on the same OP river catching and releasing hundreds of wild steelhead in a single season."

First off, the customer in front of that guide boat is an angler who likely only fishes here several times a season ... no different than the other "non-guided" that you mention.

Secondly, you're assuming that the guides here that allows guest to keep fish stop fishing after they've killed their wild fish. This simply isn't the case. Even though an angler must stop fishing after retaining his / her two hatchery fish early in the season, because f the mythical latter season hatchery fish, clients in these boats continue to fish. So ... not only do they kill one for sure, they also play C&R the rest of the day just like the those in boats like mine, with one important distinction ... rarely do you see the the higher mortality methods used by many of these anglers change after the one wild fish is retained. there is a big difference, thank you