Well great question...

Personally when you compare basin to basin you're talking about 2 complete different watersheds... For example all the LCR Wild Winter steelhead enter "smaller" tributaries with a ton of access points to fish for them. Not only that but you have higher populations of humans utilizing these SW WA streams than you do on your southern Oregon Coast rivers...

For example one of the best escapements of wild winter steelhead is on the Grays River yet it's the furthest away from human populations and get's the least amount of pressure with very few access points to the fish.. See what I'm saying.

This is the same reason the #'s of wild winter steelhead will and have crashed on the Olympic Penninsula... Heck I remember nearly 20 years ago going up there on a weekend during the peak of the season and the pressure was light to say the least. Now you can't even find a parking spot let alone a rock to stand on...

You close rivers like the Toutle River and Green River (trib of the Toutle) like they did and you get more than escapement back...

I'm not blaming CnR, I'm blaming over fishing them no matter the tactic....

Keith
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It's time to put the red rubber nose away, clown seasons over.