A recent post discussed a concept of allowing anglers to catch "excess" fish - those that exceed the river's holding capacity. I also remember seeing reports from Alaksa a few years back about how too any sockeye returning would exceed the systems carrying capacity thus endangering future runs.

I have seen rivers in Alaska where salmon redds were literally on top of each other. The rivers get back huge runs each year. I could see no problem.

I wonder, how did nature get along before we stepped in to limit excess fish from returning? Is there a real problem with excess fish coming into a system? Any ideas?