I think Tug hits a nail on the head but it goes further than that. We have to recognize that every steelhead we kill this year is also a fraction of a fish we kill next year and the year after that. In streams in South America they have steelhead that have returned seven or eight times (I forget which). Since most repeat spawners are females, and their fecundity really jumps up, these are a lot of eggs that don't get deposited.

Killing kelts is also bad because they have already survived the rigors of spawning and are headed back down. While I know they didn't all return as repeats, one year on our study stream we passed about 50 females above the rack. We found one dead. ALL the others melted out down past the rack. Since I doubt that netted kelts were soled or recorded on fish tickets we have no real idea of the magnitude.