... Surely it would make more sense to either have a close season on all waters or not have one at all. My personal preference would be to have a close season but if there is not one on lakes then why have one on rivers? I would rather not have one at all rather than the current situation..
Probably covered somewhere above in this thread (apologies, but I havent the time to read it all), but I'll suggest anyway - One thing to consider is that the vast majority of lakes are privately owned, usually by just one landowner. Hence, the fish are privately owned, so the owner can set whatever season they see fit, and members / ticket holders have to abide by it. If the lake loses fish, then it's their owner's responsibility.
On rivers, the fish belong to nobody, and the fishing rights are usually owned by many different clubs and landowners. Reaching a consensus on a close season for any particular river could be very difficult, and the actions of one landowner (e.g running matches, retaining gravid fish in keepnets in areas where fish shoal to spawn, etc) could have impacts for the others.
I am not defending or protesting against the close season, just saying that the situation is different on rivers as it is on lakes.