Elijah,

I did read the linked study a few months ago when it first appeared. Because of your insinuation that I didn't read it, I looked it up on my computer where I had stored it in a file folder late last year. Looks like a senior moment on my part - may you never experience the same should you live to a ripe old age. Indeed, the study examined interactions of hatchery summer steelhead with wild winter run steelhead both when both were co-mingled upstream of North Fork Dam and after the summer runs were separated after 2001.

What I forgot over the last several months is that the presence of summer steelhead in the upper Clackamas upstream of NF Dam did not affect the wild winter runs because; 1. May PDO was the co-variate most highly correlated with both hatchery summer steelhead and wild winter steelhead SAR, and probably 2. the summer steelhead used the upper Clackamas differentially from the winter run fish, more likely due to serendipity of stocking locations than any strategic design.

The termination of passing hatchery steelhead upstream of NF Dam wasn't due to people like me. If you think I am opposed to hatcheries, you have read a very small sample of my forum posts. For the record, I am 100% for wild fish. And I support using hatcheries in ways that cause minimal effects (which is not zero effects) on wild fish.

The only pride I have with regards to my posts on fish related topics is that I try to provide the most accurate biological and fish management information that I can. I write the vast majority of my posts from memory and rarely look anything up before posting. As a result I occasionally get something wrong, or forget a key point, as I did in this case. I see however, that other posters took up the slack and filled in those critical blanks. I appreciate that. And I went back and re-read the article. There's no pride of authorship with me. Getting information accurate and correct is what I'm all about. Seek the truth and go where it leads us is my motto.

BrianM,

I thought the Courter reference to stocking the lower mainstem Clackamas refers to stocking downstream of NF Dam. It's possible that they mean the lower-upper, but I didn't draw that inference. It seems confusing to use such a label without a clarifying descriptive explanation (kind of like how NMFS refers to the mid-Columbia as the "upper" Columbia because in federal agency land the Columbia River stops at the US-Canada border, defying physical reality.

I also agree that temporal and spatial separation were important factors with respect to a lack of observable effect of the hatchery fish on the wild winter runs. I think an even more important factor might be the very poor reproductive efficiency of hatchery steelhead in the natural environment.

Sg