If that's true, then why discuss bait bans and barbless hooks? Aree we being disingenuous here or what? Your argument falls apart as soon as you decide "others" behavior has to be controled to reduce impacts further, but yours does not.
Barbless is more a philisophical choice. I personally don't see any real reason to have anything other than single barbless regardless of species of fish. I would agree that if I were selective on this it would be hypocritical, but I'm not, and advocate it for all fisheries. As stated before, I'd prefer not to see bait, but understand it's importance in quite a few fisheries.
Besides, the best affect a bait/barb ban can have is in the protection of the smolts that haven't out migrated. None of them are harvestable in size (less than 14"), and get the crap beaten outta them by folks who gut hook and handle them poorly. In general that ban would have little to with spawner survial and fitness and more to do with juvienille protection and surviability.
C&R is the right thing to do most of the time. But maybe not so much, if steelhead are at too much risk already.
And the specific stocks that cannot have that stress placed on them are already closed. Once again the PS region hasn't had any wild harvest for quite some time. In the case of the C&R season on the Skagit/Sauk, it's about extending the sport fishing season to benefit the largest possible numbers of anglers. On the OP the same can be said of the 1 wild fish harvest. We only have so many fish, and we need to satisfy the largest number of people with a fixed resource.
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