"Plus, a guide who knows how to properly release fish and responsibily fish bait, may do less harm over an entire week then a good who doesn't know how to do either could do in a 3 day period."

That is a totally unsustantiated opinion.

I think a case could be made that having so many guides with customers on board fishing in a river with wild steelhead migrating in it creates a substantial impact on the fish. Guides may know alot about fish handling but their customers don't. And it is the shear numbers of fishers that guides may contribute to the problem.

Don't worry Aunty..I am not advocating this idea but just pointing to it as a possible rule if the stocks are so weak as to require restrictions of any kind. Everyone should know by now that I am for WSR and also wild salmon release..trout release....etc. (not halibut release) I am also afraid of the tide of restrictions all over the place to stop fishing in the name of conservation....No fishing zones for example that are put in place without scientific cause but just because it is the "environmental thing to do". Spills over into politics too...very small minority groups have succeeded in hijacking the courts to force things on the majority even though the majority is against the "protection" the minority is convinced is the only right way to do things.

If harvest is the focus then why not curtail harvest? DUH....First though why not determine whether harvest is the culprit and if so what kind of harvest? and who is harvesting the most....Not some feel good rule that will not get results. If the stocks are really crashing as JG points out then maybe more drastic measures are needed...IF and only if saving the wild fish is the goal and not if the goal is to clear the rivers of the Neandrathals who don;t fish right....leaving the rivers more fishable for those who are really fishing the right way.

Just some food for thought.