You know I don't care about keeping wild steelhead as I never have had the desire to and never will. I catch too many hatchery fish as it is....

But, for all you people to be excited over the fact that there will be a statewide native steelhead release blows me away, it's idiotic. It's been native steelhead release on the SW WA rivers since 1986 I believe give or take a year and the runs are still what they were then if not worse. Of course you have ocean cycles that result in a little better return but nothing that's out of this world or what it was supposedly like before white man got here.

Now you've only gave in to the state and game department and are getting a little closer to shorter seasons and year around river closures. As time has gone on with all you whining about the downswing of wildfish runs the game department has listened and started to REDUCE HATCHERY PLANTS TOO. This reduction has resulted in early closures and what not.

MARK MY WORD IT WON'T BE LONG (perhaps 10 years) AND THERE WILL BE MORE RIVERS IN THIS STATE THAT WILL HAVE YEAR AROUND CLOSURES... This will result in heavier sportsmen fishing in rivers that are open and overall will result in year around closures to rivers that have a native fishery...

It's too bad we can't utilize this energy towards the real problems. Again our rivers have been closed since 1986 for native steelhead retention and during that time period all or our rivers in SW WA (except the Cowlitz and Lewis) have had their hatchery plants nearly cut in half. This still hasn't helped the native fish returns.

Overharvesting is a issue but their are other issues out there that need to be addressed, I think what the penninsula had was perfect. Being able to retain 5 native fish a year, perhaps they could have cut it back to 2 fish a year... You will now start seeing shorter seasons, mark my word......

Keith