Aunty -
Not so sure that I'm asking for the cake and being able to eat it as well however I would like to have either a piece or a bit of the cake. You seem to think that we anglers should have neither.

Consider this simple example. A river historically support an anadromous run of salmonids that number 6,000 spawners, however the population has crashed to a 2,000 fish level and is ESA listed with a recovery goal of 4,000 spawners. Further lets suppose that only a sport fishery (currently catching 500 fish/year) and a hydro dam are the only Hs impacting the system.

Let's suppose that the managers follow your recommendation and the sport fishery is closed bumping the escapement up 2,5000 fish which eventually stablizes at a run size of 3,000. Further lets suppose the hydro operator continues to make good faith efforts (soending many millions of dollars) over the next 2 decades lowering its impacts until recovery (4,000 spawners) is reached. Everyting is good except there are surplus fish to support any fishing effort - any fishing related impacts will drive the run back below that magic 4,000 level.

Do you expect the hydro operator will continue to spend big buck so the run will continue rebuild to a level that supports the fishing once ESA obilagtions had been met? In the world that I live in I don't see that happening; do any of you?.

You are arguing a position where fishing is not a legimate use of the resource and I will continue to find a problem with that and look for solutions that multiple uses.

Now requiring that sport fishermen quite fishing to never fish again while other uses continue to limit population abundances is really lame!

Tight lines
Curt