I received the following from a colleague who worked on BC steelhead. Edited some for brvity. I might add that views probably reflect those of "old guys" form other agencies.....We simply can't claim that we didn't know what was going on.

My take on the BC steelhead management scene in recent times is there is no one home. The organization I once toiled for has been emasculated, repeatedly re-organized, demoralized, suffered disproportionately large budget and staff cuts and led by a succession of people who were successful in the job competitions because no astute and informed individual ever applied.

In my view the returns of the past couple of years at least have been reasonably predictable. People forget that southern BC experienced unprecedented drought and heat conditions until deep into the fall. Some of our once upon a time larger producers were little more than wet rocks for weeks. Of course, those were the same years of "the blob", largely held to be responsible for poor adult returns in the years immediately following. Between fresh water habitat conditions that undoubtedly reduced steelhead smolt populations for 2 or 3 years at least and then sending them off to an ocean that was equally unfavourable I find it hard to believe our "managers" could be surprised at outcomes. Throw in competition in the Gulf of Alaska and central north Pacific from Russian and Asian hatchery pinks and chums and the aggravation added by Alaska and voila!

I tried to encourage some of my successors to look at size at ocean age and condition factor from as many fish as they could get their hands on over the past couple of years. No takers. My personal angling contacts over that time have mentioned repeatedly "the fish sure are small this year and lots of them are skinny". There was a time when such observations would inspire investigation by the biologists in the saddle. Sadly, those days are gone and I see no hope of anything better in future. When our generation fades from the scene the bar will be lowered that much more. But, unless those in the game at that point know where to look for some history lessons, who will ever know what Pauley's shifting baselines refers to?

One more signal you may not have heard about........there's been an annual Boxing Day derby on the Chilliwack/Vedder system (65 miles east of downtown Vancouver) for 75 years. It was held on that date for a reason - there was a good supply of 100% wild steelhead in the river. Well, this year, with 312 entrants fishing under unusually good water and weather conditions there was exactly one (hatchery) steelhead caught. Rumour has it there may have been one or two wild steelhead caught and released but no confirmation. I guess the run in late!

Sign of the times - this is the first year since 1962 that I didn't even fish for steelhead. That had nothing to do with anything but the dearth of fish. 2020 will be much better, though. Right?