ORIGINAL: EagleCrg

Some comments on a few points:
1. I have only been fishing the Salmon River for 7 years, but in that "short" time have seen much access be eroded for fishermen.  Legality aside, in my mind the entire river up to the dam should be public access.  The waterfront there (and river) derive most of its value from the fact that the hatchery was built there and the stocking that the state does.  I don't know much about its legal use, but to me there isn't a much better case for eminent domain.  Problem is, if this ever was declared public via eminent domain, it seems to me that every tributary to Lake Ontario would have to be treated the same and thats not going to happen.  Still, it seems that the state could do more to secure rights of way along the river.
2. Even if the state does stop stocking there, the salmon will survive.  There is enough natural reproduction going on that there will always be runs now, barring some ecological catastrophe which is not out of the question with the growing list of invasive species.  The runs might be much smaller, but they will be there.  Stocking will continue regardless of what happens in the long run to the Salmon River as the impact of the stocking is felt across the entire Lake Ontario basin, including Canada.
3.  I believe the size of the runs and fish has much more to do with what is going on out in the lake--forage changes, invasive species, etc, than what happens in the river.  Some exceptions of course, like the low water last year.
4. Trash.  Fishermen could do much to improve their name with little effort.  Anytime I fish the river I always take a little garbage bag with me and pick up some trash to take out with me.  If even a small percentage of fishermen did this, most of the trash would be nonexistent--even with the hordes that throw it out.  There are several fishing groups that do cleanups along the river every year, but as far as I know, they never do anything to let the landowners know that they were there doing good deeds.  This would paint the fishermen in a positive light and help offset all the bad that occurs.  I wonder if any of these cleanup efforts make the local papers there.  They are usually well announced on the discussion boards.
5.  Guides.  I believe the guides on the river are a very influential group and I have a great deal of respect for most of them.  Many are very involved in river issues and with the DEC & local government and the list of their good deeds runs deep.  They also carry considerable sway with fishermen and influence their opinions alot (IMHO).  I question whether the river guides (as a group) would support lots of public access.  From what I have observed, the majority of them take their clients to the private part of the river.  I can understand why (fewer crowds and slobs) and they are catered to by the DSR at least (not saying its a bad thing).  So I don't think they would favor making the whole river public access.

the DSR upped there numbers to 500 fisherman per day