Steelspanker -
Going barbless would not be a big issue for me. I kept careful records of my fishing years ago and found that I actually landed as many or more fish barbless than when I fished with barbed hooks (the barbless hooks seem to hook more fish). I was such a believer in barbless that I used them when introduce others to the sport include my son as young as 6 years old. Those beginners had virtually no trouble with landing steelhead that had been hooked on barbless hooks.

However in terms of protecting parr, smolts, resident rainbows, or even adult steelhead the evidence is that the difference between barbed and barbless hooks in the survival of released fish is slight (not satistically significant) though I continue to use exclusively barbless hooks in my anadromous fish fishing for any of the marginal benefits they might provide. On the other hand the banning of the use of bait would have a documented significant increase in survival of the released fish, especially juveniles, spawn-outs, summer adults and resident trout.

I realize of course that many folks will have a difficult time giving up their bait (just think of all the female salmon and steelhead that might have been killed just for their eggs) however short of not fishing for those fish the single most benefiical thing we can do for fish that we release is to fish without bait.

Tight lines
Curt