I thought this might be an intereesting topic for chat tonight:

Is the time here for a regulation for steelhead that are not retained to not be removed from the water prior to release?

A little background on this ... the areas that I fish in Alaska have regulations that forbid anglers from removing either kings, steelhead or rainbows from the water prior to release.

It semms to work fairly well, pictures can still be taken with the fish partially in the water in the shallows ... yet this keeps fish from being brought aboard and flopping in the boat or being held out of the water for long periods before release.

I bring this up as last week-end, I was at Leyendecker Park talking with the local fish checker regarding the creel count ???'s that Smalma brought up.

While there, a boat littered with California guide stickers pulls out (I bring up the stickers because you think they would have known better).

After pulling out, the fish checker called me over to watch a video they were showing him of about a 15-16 pound buck they "released".

The video showed the fish being netted in a standard landing net, then pulled aboard ... the fish flopped around a few times. They proceeded to finally get the fish out of the net, cut the leader about 18 inches up from the fish, let it flop a few more times. Then an angler in the front of the boat reached down and grabbed the fish. The other fella dug for a camera for a few moments and then finally snapped a picture. The angler holding the fish then simply threw the fish back in the river ...

I asked them to play it back one more time and started counting at the time the fish came in the boat until the time it landed in the water ... 62 seconds.

Biting my tongue the best I could, I simply suggested they they keep the fish out of the water for a shorter period of time next time and walked away without really saying what I though about the whole thing.

I hate to say it, but it's not the first time I've seen handled like this. Given that ... is it time to put some sort of regulation in place to avoid this sort of handling down the road?

I know it will inconvenience some, especially those in sleds looking for a fish pic, BUT if this is what's gonna happen, I personally think we should have something in place.

Stop by and tell me what you think or other options to keep this from happening in LIVE CHAT from 8 to 10PM