Great post, one thing I notice is that nowhere has anybody mentioned the impact of poaching. In years past poaching has been contributing reason for closing the C&R fishery. Curt, are there estimates as to how many fish are poached in a C&R season? How does poaching impact the decision making process?

I fear that the recent reduction in hatchery planting will have the greedy fisherman using the "entitled" term and killing wild fish.

Lets face it, with no hatchery steelhead to mitigate the impacts on wild fish the number of angler encounters cant be measured. We don't know how many fishermen will be fishing. Most anglers will have near zero opportunity to fish for Steelhead except for a C&R season on one river system. This will skew the forecasted angler encounter numbers that we are currently using. Steelhead are like a drug for the folks that love to fish em' and they are all gonna want to get their fix.

If a limited season were to happen its gonna be a crowded river!