NO!! Ive never had a steelhead or salmon swallow any bait ive used. Plunking and pulling divers is another story. Your standard drift rig and float rig offer little time for a fish to "inhale" the offering, unless you are totally unconscious. like mentioned above, there are times a bait ban is totally necessary - CNR seasons, and heavy smolt migration timing.

tap..tap...tap... tap... tap...ZZZZzzzzzzzzzz
fish on :p

Since I catch most of my fish on herring, no. However, I'm all for having selective fishing areas and fly fishing only areas, particularly in the upper reaches of rivers for C&R. And "trout" fishing of any kind, but especially with bait, should be banned in any stream that supports anadromous fish - those "trout" would have been steelhead in a couple of years if they had not swallowed the power bait or gotten the treble hook through their eye

No way!!!!

No,No,No!

No, and I'll never support catch and release worm digging in Washington, either.

Cowlitzfisherman - did you mention a state wide ban?
I think it can (and has) been used as a good managent tool (isn't that your question?).

Under many conditions - Yes, Washington.

No - Washington

We already have enough regulations and restricted waters, not to mention emergency closures to make our heads spin.NO WASH. Lets just hope that this year they get the rules straight before they pint the pamphlet.I don't mean to sound ill-hearted, but I would like some consistency. Checking the state web page every time I go out gets old fast. J.C.B

if they banned bait in washington, fishhead 5 would be able to save about 4 hundred dollars a year on refrigeration cost alone.

Did you think you would get ANY yes votes?

Bigdog2250

That is just one of the answers this survey will reveal!

Cowlitzfisherman
Is the taste of the bait worth the sting of the hook????

No-Washington

They shouldn't do this statewide. Only look at each river because each river is different. Some places a bait ban is ok, but not statewide.

~ Dr Pepper

I am not opposed to resricting the use of bait on certain rivers at certain times of the year. For example, the fly only stretch on the Kalama..... I mean, something like that is fine. But hasn'tthis State already made it hard enough to harvest fish in this state without adding yet ANOTHER stupid regulation that we'd have to abide by? I'm against th idea of using a Statewide bait ban as a managment because It's not really a "Managment" tool at all. A bait ban would only serve to make it harder for us to catch fish..... That's not managment at all. The state already charges too much for licenses and tags and doesn't do nearly enough to enhance the fishing.... Why in the world would we want them to make it any harder than it already is? If the state wants to "Manage" the fish, then why don't they actally start to do things that will enhnce the fishing? We already have enough stupid regulations on the books, geared soley at making harder for us to be successful in our hunting and fishing efforts. We dont need yet another stumbling block thrown in our way.

no.

I would not support a year round bait ban, however I would be in favor of a bait ban from April through August .

Most of us here are in favor of state wide CnR on wild fish, but when it comes to not using bait on summer fish , which are sometimes the easiest to catch without bait , we would not give that right to fish bait up. Why is that?

Bait does by far the most damage by fishermen to out migrating smolts than most catch and kill fisheries have on returning adults .

Think about it, if your out fishing bait on a given summer day and you hook and kill incidently a few to half dozen wild smolt that are in the 4 inch plus range (which once they are that large have a much higher chance of ocean survival ) what kind af damage does that do to the population over the course of a summer ?

Most of us here would never do anything to hurt an adult wild steelhead , but what damage are we doing to runs of juvenile steelhead by fishing bait?

They have bait bans on several Western Washington rivers now and it don't seem to stop the bait fishermen. Take the upper Sauk from Darrington up. It's supposed to be no bait,but in the summer time you find worm containers all over the place. I don't support anything until they can inforce it. Just my .02 Jim S.

"NO" to BAIT band in WA.

No! They should open all waters to bait fishing period! The only alternative is to close them. No discrimination!

That's a funny one!!
Keith

Rieter Rat, Finally a response based on reason, rather than emotion. BTW, My opinion supports your reason. From the studies I've read bait doesn't have much of a impact on steelhead during winter months Nov-March. The rest of the year I say YES to no bait. But this is a useless survey because it won't happen.

In my opinion bait is a confidence tool, wild winter steelhead and summer runs are aggressive enough and it's not needed to be successful plus you lower theimpact on the down river kelts, smolts, char and cutthroat. Gosh look how successful anglers are during the C&R season and there's no bait allowed then