When it comes to steelhead, and current situation, any honest angler would certainly stop.
The only time you might see them dipping the rods, is say on the Vedder where the ministry wants anglers to remove the
hatchery steelhead! (that's why they upped the limit to 2 per day)
But then again, hatchery steelhead might be the only steelhead around soon.
(I think they require 60 of them to keep the hatchery program going, but I am not sure if they like to capture wild steelhead, and thus keep the hatchery steelhead only one generation from wild, or if they use hatchery steelhead to continue the program???)
Also, i know most avid anglers would give up catching Chum, to also not accidently catch Steelhead!
They would give that up in a heartbeat if you gave them a Chinook Season back, or more than it is.
The bigger issue is folks that don't care about the Regs to begin with and basically poach away with their rods for anything and everything.
And the other group right now are the ones using their nets on the river to catch Chum.
As for the survival and competition in the ocean, well that's a whole different issue.
Much harder to contend with.
If these fish were on the list right now, as should be, then there could be no nets or angling allowed during their run.
The ethical folks understand that and would support it.
So, what does that say about the other groups and the government.
Who is the government supporting!!???
Thats not hard to figure out.
To scared to say and do anything, and what a story it will be that JT allowed Steelhead to go extinct in Canada.
In this day and age, it can happen here!
And we complain about other countries.....hmmmmm.