This runs a little along the lines of a thread I posted in Sound Off.

My opinion is fish the holding water at certain times and youre more than likely not targeting actively spawning fish. If you stick at it and pay attention youll catch some fish. The thing is it defineately takes time and patience to do this and its something that we as Americans have on short supply

In the afforementioned thread I had stated I was finished for the season after watching the spectacle of several fly anglers raking gravel. I watched about 20 fish be landed on a stretch in the matter of an hour and not one was fair. I fished holding water that day and picked up a few all firmly hooked in the mouth. Now when the run was on I picked up TONS of fish all fair hooked out of holding water. The key was the timing. With anadromous/potadramous fish you arent going to hit those ideal situations all the time, so you either suffer lesser or no numbers or you hit the beds. It takes time, some footwork, and a bit of troubleshooting. The problem is people equate big numbers with their abilities as an angler and very few people would play a low percentages game and fish the relatively few holding fish when they can see hundreds of fish on the beds.

The problem is people see these huge fish in low or clear water and the impulse just takes over. The fish are there, they generally wont go very far, and even if you spook them they come right back so to the redd ripping angler its all a matter of time in their thinking. Hell Ive seen guys lobbing golf ball sized bobbers right on top of a pod of spawners and scare them off, only to watch them return moments later.

In the end whats legal is whats legal. Ethics is a hard thing to teach to a fast food, MTV saturated culture, so good luck with that.