Age limit, 70 and above.......
I like the age limit 70 and above idea but even that won’t help wild steelhead.
It really isn't just the fish, it is all natural resources. Who here used to duck hunt the Green River valley? Or deer hunt in what is now Issaquah? Or? Or?
All of our resources are at risk as we continue to expand into their range. We have a choice, but it the same one that all previous generations have had. That is, to share the world with natural resources. It may have been "easier" to ignore the problem when there were less people, but the first people to the New World certainly aided, if not caused, the extinction of a lot of big mammals.
The choice is to limit our total impact to the world and I suspect that short-term profits have determined the answer.
Management agencies manage people, not fish. At the extremes of manage options there are two possibilities. One is no harvest, already discussed, wild steelhead numbers will be determined by our actions, pointed out by Carcassman. The other extreme is no management, harvest continues until the costs outweigh the rewards. There will still be steelhead, the short term profits will be just exactly short term. For myself the cost has exceeded the quality of the steelhead sport fishing experience. I might feel differently if I lived on a river where I could sit by the fire and plunk all day but to join the crowds, no.
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