Hi Stacie: It's nice to see you chime in on this issue. I perhaps overkilled when I said
I'd like to see a powerbait ban, but as you know there IS no way to practice conservation
using powerbait or any other bait for that matter, though I see many people practicing C&R baitfishing and grading, in my area it's a big problem. These fish are wasted,period.

I think you SHOULD list those lakes where you have a grading problem as NO BAIT lakes.
Those with children do not have to have every lake available to them to find a good spot
for the kids to fish. Besides, much of the real young kids fishing thing is actually parents fishing with
their kids in order to fishhog a second or third limit of trout. The older kids should be
learning to fish barbless flies or single hook barbless lures as they can cast well enuff.

I wholeheartedly endorse your idea that the Dept. should be more proactive in endorsing
C&R fishing and in holding seminars to teach those who want to learn to flyfish C&R.
So many people think that it's a magic coordination thing and get discouraged from trying
when in reality you do not even have to cast to fish chironomids or drag nymphs.

My last point to you is that we are getting serious crowding on our quality and fly fishing only
lakes in E.Wash and also those in W.Wash to a lesser degree. This indicates to me a rapidly
growing trend away from bait fishing for 8-10" trout and into fishermen serching for a quality large
trout fishing expericence. Your Department has done a good job on most of the quality lakes
it has designated. However, there should be many many more of them. Take a lood at
Canadas lead. Perhaps 40% are restricted limit.
Thanks again for your input and participation on our web forum. It should be manditory reading for most of your Depts. staff.