Hey Salmo g, after reading your post, a lightbulb just went on in my head.

Since the reigning fish czar(s) have deemed a 15% exploitation rate consistent with recovery... or at least preventing extinction.... any fishing method that had a true release mortaility of 15% or less would allow "handling" of 100% of the run.

Think about that folks...

Think of ALL the fishermen as one collective pot.... tribal, commercial, and sport. Now if somehow we could have every participant using a gear type with no more than 15% honest-to-God release mortality (not some made up tangle net BS), the ENTIRE runsize could theoretically be "handled" by the collective fleet and still meet the 15% ESA benchmark.

15% release mortality would mathematically give us all 100% access to every stinkin' hatchery fish in the run.

Put in those terms, it seems very do-able.