Salmon seems to one of the few species where ESA allows totally avoidable "take". I say avoidable because they can be taken in the river, when separate. Other ESA "takes" tend to be of a truly incidental nature.

But, back when the various inland cutthroat were listed the state's were able to convince the Feds that down listing to Threatened gave them the flexibility to have C&R fisheries, do restorations (remove exotics, replace with cutts) and so on. The state's argued, among other things, that if they could allow some angling that public support would increase. Damn if it hasn't worked pretty well, too. There are now lots more opportunities to fish for these fish that were, a few decades ago, down to a couple of tiny populations.

Salmon are just too important, today, to really be concerned about tomorrow.