Navy Seal...I absolutlely understand your idea that it is silly to release a fish that will die to go hook another one that may live. #1 you dont know it that fish will die or not and #2, you can't apply the law when you think its best.
This whole meat fishery is BS. Oh ya its a meat fishery so its OK to snag fish, its of to keep fish hooked in the belly, there lots, its a gold rush, who cares...
So I would say when I fish the vedder for chums, coho, ans whites that there are lots around...I can catch them on jigs, blades, roe, whatever. What about guys who see all these fish and can't fairly induce a bite...they line up with all the other snaggers and beaks at all the meat holes and line fish. Who decided what is and isn't a meet fishery...I haven't heard DFO calling one fishy or another by that name so we are left with INDIVIDUAL FISHERS making personal decision now as to what is or isnt a meat fishery, when it is or isnt acceptable to keep a snagged fish, etc, etc. Look at the wiki definition of Anarchy:A social state in which there is no governing person or group of people, but each individual has absolute liberty. Look at the bars a pegleg etc, the disregard for the regs, fellow fisher, and fish and I think you will find the fraser floss fishery is pretty much anarchy. no two ways about it and it creates a disregard for the regs and the resource over a wide range of fisheries.
We need to separate the fraser sockeye run from sport fishing. it needs to be managed under a different system, call it food harvest, call it a meat fishery, call it sustinance fishing, whatever. Just stop calling it and managing it as a sport fishery.