As ususal Salmo is right on the money - everywhere in the state where a CnR fishery targets wild steelhead selective gear rules are required. What is there about the coast steelhead populations that would make it different?

Todd -
The Draft WSC white paper (#2) very clearly calls for more extensive use of selective gear restrictions in steelhead fishery management. This regulation proposal would seem to be a natural for WSC; especially given its position as put forth in the white paper.

Regarding the need during the spring. While hooking mortality on adults during the winter is normally not a large issue the case with kelts (spawn-outs) is an entirely different matter. My experience and that of most anglers that I know is that kelts eat bait big time with a substantial portion of them caught on bait being hooked in critical areas. It would be fair to say that hooking mortality on bait caught kelts would be very similar that of trout - that is we could expect a 1/3 of them to die.

In WSC's first white paper a whole section was devoted to the importance of kelts to the overall population. This is based on the large contribution that repeat spawning females make to the total number of eggs deposited in the gravel each spring. In addition they provide stability to run sizes.

Why is that you don't think it is important to protect those kelts on the coast as much as those in Puget Sound? Especially given that the onset of wild steelhead spawning on many of the coastal rivers is a month earlier than on Puget Sound rivers making even more likely that anglers would encounter kelts during their fishing.

Given the rheotic of WSC and yourself about the need to err on the side of the wild steelhead resource I'm surprised that this proposal doesn't have your full and vocal support. In fact I would have expected your position to be one of questioning the allowing the use of bait in the spring chinook fishery on the Sol Duc/Quillayute. After all we are talking about allowing bait to catch hatchery chinook at the risk of wild steelhead - that doesn't seem to be putting the wild resources as the primary priority.

Tight lines
S malma