The ocean certainly sucks, but there is a lot already known about steelhead in freshwater that we are ignoring.

Here's a few things that WDFW and BC F&W, plus some other researchers, have found out.

1. Increasing nutrients, whether by increased salmon escapements, fertilizers, or contributions from sewage treatment plants, results in more smolts, younger smolts and higher R/S. Which means that even in poor ocean years, you get more back. The fertilizer experiments in BC took a run with an R/S <1 and pushed it >1.

2.Setting increased minimum flows in late summer benefits salmon positively and steelhead negatively. It appears to tune the anadromous steelhead into residents.

3. Lowering the summer temperatures in streams favors residents at the expense of anadromous.

4. Most steelhead runs have a R/S less than 1.0 through first return as spawners. It is the repeat spawners that bring the R/S to >1.0.

As I said, all this is known, the data are there.