I think FP may have hit the mark again. Require a special permit (to be visibly worn by anglers) to fish the subject rivers during prime snag fest season. As little as $5 or $10 a day would probably keep most of the people who are just there to snag and floss fish away. That's my guess anyway. Easy to enforce: you either have the permit or you don't, unlike trying to prove in a court of law that the suspect was snagging salmon.

As for whether it's recreation or meat, I think it's a little of both. I go salmon fishing and razor clamming for the fun and because the catch is good to eat. I know many fishermen love to fish for chum salmon CNR and never keep a fish, altho some people do keep them. I have no interest in fishing for salmon that aren't the kind of table fare that I want, so maybe that makes me a meat fisherman. But if I didn't also enjoy fishing for salmon or digging razor clams, I would just buy them. I go trout fishing, or saltwater flats fishing and never think about keeping a fish. I used to go steelhead fishing and not think about keeping a fish either, until WDFW made rules on certain rivers requiring that anglers kill the hatchery steelhead they catch.

If it were only the meat, the Puyallup, Nisqually, and Skokomish are the last places I would go to fish for salmon. On a meat only basis, that just doesn't make sense, but then neither does engaging in sport fishing using unsporting techniques.

Sg