The reason those rivers are failing is over crowding and over fishing. Throw in the jet sleds and it shrinks the river down even more. For those of us that grew up in the old school it's hard to stomach. In those days if someone had a sled they would slow down to a crawl when passing other fisherman. Even bank fisherman. There was river etiquette and amazingly there weren't the amount of fisherman or sleds we see today. Now when it's needed more than ever it rarely exists. There are however still some people that do the right thing.

Sometimes I wonder if some fisherman are out there for the right reasons. My dad (he died at 88) and his crew of sport fishermen were way ahead of the game. Their rules were things like "If you aren't going to eat the fish you catch, let it go. Don't kill it to pass it on to someone else to eat". "If a guy is working a hole start your fishing above him not below him." "Enjoy the total experience meaning the wild life, the beautiful scenery, the opportunity to see things that most people will never see and so on".

These days I see people literally racing from a parking spot to the river so they can stand side by side 5 feet apart from the next knucklehead. The same applies for boat fisherman. In the last 10 years we (my fishing partners) sleep in a little longer and let the invasion fight their way down the river. When we put in it's usually smooth sailing with relatively few others to compete with and yes we do catch fish and plenty of them. We have not kept a steelhead of any kind (native or hatchery) for 20 years. I was taught it's the total package when steelhead fishing and not just a brutal onslaught of freaked out dudes who can't stand the thought of the guy/boat ahead of them catching a fish with the mentality that there won't be any left. Steelhead fishing is a total experience. To some that may sound corny but I don't give a f*@k.

Catch and release should be the norm and not the exception. Now someone is going to say that hatchery fish should be taken. There is one big problem with that theory. If you want to know what that problem is take a look at the stats from the hatcheries this year. It's a nightmare. I don't think one hatchery got their expected returns.