I hate to be the bringer of bad news,but here goes.The Mighty Thompson river ,the one known for its large extremely hard fighting steelies is closed to angling in all months except june - sept 31.
This is being done to hide the true # of steelhead in the system from the general public.
Of course our pathetic govt ,both federal and provincial,have released no plan to stop the native and commercial slaughter of these great fish,nor have they addressed the serious problems caused by the severe drawdown of water by the ranchers and farmers.
This is a joke ,a few fish might be killed each year by fisherman not practised in proper release techniques,but that aside the only reason to keep the fisherman away is to hide the problems with the fishery.
This fishery has been c&r for years and that did nothing to improve the wild stocks.
This is atrend that cannot continue,everytime a fishery is becoming endangered remove the people that care most.
I am hoping that sportfisherman can band together and put pressure on these govt agencies to enforce the laws that they create.
Illegal native fishing up here has gotten out of control,last year a fisheries officer was suspended for trying to stop an illegal native fishery ,just doing his job.The natives then announced that they had a cache of weapons on the reserves and would use them if anyone tried to stop their fishing.So guess what ,native fisheries went full bore all year on any fish they felt like targeting.Then the Govt opened the fraser to the commrcials to target chum salmon for their roe ,dead smack in the middle of the summer steelhead run.
After all this the great conservation move was to remove sportfishers as 2 or 3 steelhead might be killed by hooking mortality.
Our govt does not regconize the huge $ put into the economy by fisherman visiting from the USA and abroad,but soon will when people stop coming ,by then our fishing wiil be completely in the toilet.
Its sad as the oceans have been kinder to our sport fish as of late and these would be the times to serious work on rebuilding stocks .If we get hit with el nino again these runs of fish will be lucky to survive .
Welcome to the great Canadian lie.

When I moved from Ohio to Oregon 8 years ago, I read about the mighty Thompson, as well as many rivers in BC and Washington State that had prolific native steelhead. Thought I would have fished a bunch of them by now. I haven't because the fishing for (big native) steelhead here in Oregon has been very good in recent years and I keep hearing about problems in Washington and BC. Oregon has stricter rules to preserve wild stocks and much less impact from commercial and tribal fishing. I'm sure it's no coincidence. Spent $130 in Tillamook yesterday because I forgot my waders. Could have spent it in WA or BC. We went 5 for 6 in 2/3 day fishing with the largest 37 inches, all nates.

I here what your saying,

Washington steelheading has nothing on Oregon. For to long it has been managed for harvest and now this is what we have.

There are only a few rivers left that could have a quick recovery if things continue to change for most it is already to late. Such as some of the rivers in South West Washington and many more around the state.