A C&R fishery offers significantly more time on the water (opportunity) than a catch and kill. If a run can sustain 100 fish killed that is equal to 100 killed (duh) for 2,000 C&R'd at 5% release mortality. For better or for worse, recreational fishery managers rate a fishery based on opportunity, the chance to be on the water fishing and the C&R fishery maximizes the number of days folks can be fishing.

I remember back in the early 80s when it was necessary to close the blackmouth fishery in PS because of allocation imbalances. What was interesting is that fishing wasn't closed. Salmon fishing was open (coho kill, blackmouth C&R) but folks treated it like a closure. Despite waht anglers say when interviewed (I fish to be on the water, outdoors, with my buddies) there are a lot who go fishing to kill something and if they can't kill it they won't go. This mindset needs to be clearly pointed out to managers, who still think more in terms of time on the water than fish in the boat.