OP Steelhead are not Endangered

[CutthroatPadawan]

This was an interesting thread to read through. Lots different of thought provoking ideas!

 

[JayB]

I don't think that guides, with the best of intentions, are harming the resource. Under our restrictive regulations, the resource is doing as best it can. Eliminating guiding won't change that. What eliminating guiding will do is increase the opportunity of us non-guided anglers to catch a steelhead. Guides who are on the river every day are more efficient anglers, and their clients end up catching more fish on average than non-guided anglers. So a reduction in competition would improve the opportunity for you and me.

Agree about not harming the resource. Definitely harming the experience for non-guided anglers. It'd never go anywhere but in my private utopia we'd have a system where rivers were closed to guiding either every other day, or for a three-day block every week, and there was a fixed number of rod-days on any given river that guides could bid on and re-sell to other guides in a secondary market if they weren't able to get bookings for all of the rod-days they purchased.