Here's the bottom line for Rose....

"My good friend Dick Wentworth has told me for years that a person should be done for the day–whether they keep them or not, whether they are wading or in a boat, fishing by themselves or with a guide–when they catch two wild fish.

Well, after watching the change in angling out here over the last few years, I have decided to raise the ante when it comes to my personal angling. From now on, I am going to limit myself to catching-and-releasing two wild winter steelhead each winter. Once I’ve done that, I plan to quite until summer steelhead are in the rivers.

I have no illusions that this will have any effect at all on wild steelhead populations on these rivers. And I’m not calling for anyone else to join me. It is just something I need to do at this point in my life.

I don’t intend to quit winter steelheading or stop taking people out who want to learn how to do it. In my first book, I wrote that they are one the main reasons that I chose to live on the Olympic Peninsula. I was so under their thrall, in fact, that I followed that book up with a 57,000 volume devoted entirely to winter steelhead–and my growing concerns for the way they were managed. Unfortunately, not much has really improved since then, and the amount of pressure on the fish has increased dramatically.

One of the sad lessons of living longer is the realization that most of the time most people are extremely reluctant to alter their behavior for the common good, especially when it comes to natural resources. That’s called The Tragedy of the Commons. It’s what the quote at the beginning of the essay refers to.

In the end, all we can do is change our own behavior. I don’t want to quit fishing for winter steelhead, and fishing is a blood spot, even if you practice catch-and-release. But I also don’t want to contribute to the creation of more ghosts. Those goals are, obviously, at odds with each other. This is my, admittedly, less than satisfactory answer to that conundrum."

Catch-and-release produces ghosts. A guy I know who has fished these rivers for more than 50 years says that he sees more dead steelhead on the bottom of tank holes each winter. According to the research, if you catch-and-release 10 wild fish a year, you may be killing one. When you add up all all the fish caught-and-released each winter by sports and guides, anglers are killing quite a few fish.