I see a few different factors coming into play here...

The first is that studies show that using bait, or not, doesn't make that much of a difference on the release mortality of adult steelhead, specifically winter runs or cold water fall summer runs.

Second, studies show that using bait when catching smolts and residents, and warmwater summer runs, does indeed affect release mortality...more than that, I'd say that for the juvenile non-target fish it really increases the encounter rate, too.

So...no bait, and no barbs?

The no barbs part is easy...as mentioned a few times above, though the evidence is anecdotal in natue, myself and others I know, including Smalma, have noted that overall barbless hooks will result in more fish landed...any decrease in landing rate is more than made up for by an increase in hookup rate.

The no bait part, while being pretty devestating to small juvenile and resident fish, and kelts, too, is the part that would be hard for some anglers to shake...

For wild fish, and for summer runs (wild and hatchery), I don't think a no bait rule matters much...yeah, a good bait angler can catch more with bait, but a good artificials angler can catch more with lures...not a significant step up, that's for sure.

For hatchery winter runs, bait can be considerably better in some situations. Besides wanting anglers to have a high success rate so they can bring some of those brats home, I'd also like to see as many of those hatchery brats bonked, bonked twice for good measure. I don't want to see any of those fish even turning spawning colors in a stream, much less actually spawning.

Some sort of numbers could probably be generated to determine what is worse...the mortality rate on non-target fish using bait in the winter, or in stream spawning by hatchery runts...it would probably be significant to note that the encounter rates of trout and juvenile salmonids seem to be much lower in the winter than in the spring and summer, too.

The next issue is that of fall salmon runs...what about using bait for them?

For spring and summer, I personally see no problem with banning bait for steelhead fisheries in the spring and summer, when bait is less necessary, and when encounter and mortality rates are most high for non-target fish.

For the fall and winter, it might not be necessary to ban bait...hooks can be barbless all the time, though...that's a no brainer.

Fish on...

Todd