You're getting deep there Coley. A lot of internet fishing forums can't handle that much thinking.

Fishing regulations are the result of interpretations of state law. State law is the product of the collective prevailing social values in morals, ethics, and social mores. Social values vary from culture to culture, and that results in some of the fish and wildlife clashes with newer immigrants who don't see anything wrong in taking as many fish or crabs or clams as they can, nor do they understand the concept of minimum size limits.

The concept of fair chase in sport fishing is usually taken to mean that a fish willingly takes a bait or lure in its mouth. That is why flossing is so often interpreted as snagging, because by technical definition, that's what it is.

Fishing for subsistence is fundamentally different than fishing for sport. Commercial fishing is a social extension of subsistence fishing in the way that farming is a social extension of personal gardening. So commercial fishing is allowed to use methods that are more efficient than those generally allowed for personal subsistence or for sport fishing. Fishing for subsistence is different in intent from sport fishing, so the rule of fair chase generally doesn't prevail in subsistence fishing. Subsistence methods of snagging, flossing, dipnetting, fish wheel, and short set gillnet are all equally ethical, if legal.

A friend of mine was a NPS ranger not far from your area some years ago. Although he and his family didn't "need" subsistence sockeye in order to survivve, the fish were abundant, and he was allowed to use a fish wheel to harvest personal use sockeye for a brief period of time as part of a community fishing effort. It was legal, and it was all about harvesting sockeye for the freezer and smoker, had nothing whatever to do with sport, and was and still is within the sideboards of sustainable fish management.

Compared to the lower 48, Alaska is pretty much a foreign country, with its own culture, ethics, and social mores. I think it is the only US state that permits and regulates "subsistence" hunting and fishing. Everywhere else those activities are regulated as recreational activities, so we have sportfishing regulations and no subsistence fishing regulations in WA state, for instance. I don't know, but suspect the same is true in CA.

The conflict, to the extent it exists, comes from trying to pound the square peg of flossing into the round hole of sportfishing regulations that abide by the concept of fair chase, and it clearly does not fit. Unlike AK, most flosseries occur in the Pacific coast states in or near hatchery blood holes, terminal fishing areas where large numbers of hatchery origin fish accumulate. The flossing technique isn't effective enough to bother with in most other locations, excepting odd numbered years when hordes of pink salmon are migrating up Puget Sound rivers.

Flossing is controversial in these areas because it is deliberate snagging, not sport fishing. Yet it occurs under the poor fitting umbrella of sport fishing. It wouldn't be difficult to ban most flossing by imposing a maximum leader length of 24" in the locations and times where and when flossing is prevalent. However, it generally wouldn't serve the fishery management interest of maximizing the harvest of hatchery salmon by banning an effective fishing technique. So it presently exists as a fish management conundrum, maximize angler days of recreation, maximize the harvest of surplus hatchery fish, and still regulate sport fishing. It might make more legal and ethical sense to regulate those areas and times as subsistence fisheries. An inherent problem is that most participants likely would not care enough to understand the difference and comply with more restrictive regulations when flossing wasn't permitted.

Fish management in this region is complex. There are no easy answers.

Next I expect you may go all philosophical and inquire about the rationalization for CNR fisheries. How are they justified by social values, morals, ethics, and mores? That's a fun one, too.

Sg