How about this one?

Puget Sound basin river system as stated in original post with 250 allowable recreational impacts on wild steelhead.

If said system has brats then it is open November thru February 15th selective gear rules no bait.

If said system does not have brats it is closed November thru end of February to appease the FREAKS and save the early run wild steelhead from eternal damnation?

Wild steelhead c&r season runs from March 1 thru April 30 selective gear, no bait, Sparky’s rule and all that other sh!t.

You are allowed 2 days fishing…..any 2 days within the open period….you pick.

Day 1) as soon as anything you brought with you gets wet from river water; i.e. presentation, rod tip (aka $300 water clarity indicator/depth sounder), boots, trailer tires etc. you have to mark your fishing license with that days date. Then go fishin’ and grinnin’.

Day 2) same rules as day one, you mark your license with that days date, go fish your brains out and when that day is over you’re done fishing steelhead for that river for the rest of the season.

Riley check my math below before Smalma does….

250 allowable impacts at 10% hooking mortality gives us 2,500 fish to get a glory shot of while keeping one fin in the water.

Angler success rate, which is the number of fish the average angler will c&r per day. I’m guessing 0.75/angler would be real high (these are wild steelhead remember)….so 2500 fish/0.75 would equal 3,333 angler days allowable. So at a two fishing day limit this allows 1,666 angler seasons.

Do you think that many would participate???

You know the bonkers (Wild Cat Steelhead club, etc.) won’t fish cuz they can’t hurt anything.

The FREAKS won’t fish cuz they might hurt something.

Francis would probably be the only one coming over from the coast.

I could be wrong but I don’t see it being that crowded.

You can always tweak hooking mortality and angler success rate but you get my drift pardon the pun.