I suspect it's going to be tough for anyone to come up with reliable statistics on who kills more wild fish - the tribes or the sport anglers. Although the tribes are required to record their catch, as are the sport anglers, I do not believe they differentiate between wild and hatchery fish in their catch records. Likewise, on my punch card, I only record the fish that I keep. And I release all wild steelhead, in part, because it's illegal to do otherwise on most rivers. For those rivers where C&K is legal for wild steelhead, the State doesn't require you to seperate wild from hatchery on your punch card. So.... don't expect much quantitative information on this issue.

However, here's something that has probably happened to many of us but won't get recorded anywhere, but is still signficant. I was fishing the NF Lewis River for springers last week with my usual assortment of large (#5) spinners. I felt a small bump so I quickly set the hook. I promptly pulled in a wriggling 6-inch rainbow trout (a future steelhead?). It had all it's fins. Unfortunately, it was also hooked badly. The hook went thru the upper part of it's mouth and out the eye. Gruesome. I gently tried to remove the hook but the wound was significant. I released it and it quickly darted off. About 15 minutes later it was floating belly up along the shore. One potential wild steelhead from a river that could use more is now dead. This won't get recorded on my punch card or count in any of the statistics. Those of us who use salmon eggs as bait, as do I, are familar with this problem. We're killing an unknown number of small salmon and steelhead, some of which are wild fish. Let's not ignore that.