Bruce,
My Two cents on subject!
After going to the steelhead symposium a couple of Saturdays ago and listening to experts from BC, Idaho and Oregon I would say that there is no surplus of wild steelhead and never has been.
Everyone of those fish has a purpose in nature. Abundent year populations are there to ensure that years where ocean conditions are poor that the spiecies survies those tough years. When we start playing with fish counts and say we can harvest 40% of a good year,(MSY) is indeed crazy. If the year after a good year turns bad due to unperdictable floods, droughts and warming ocean condition that 40% harvested would have been insurance that a certain % of 40% would have survied and made the bad years run at least surviable if they had not been bonked. God look at the screw up F&G has done on our local rivers in the last few years.
I wish there was a way to keep a wild steelhead once in awhile without hurting the population, it sure would make a special Easter dinner, sort of a sakered thing for me.
Steelhead have never been in great abundence through thier history, not like salmon have been in by gone years. It's just the nature of the fish.
We in this day and age have hatchery fish everywhere to bonk so why I ask do we need to intentionaly kill the very fish we all admire so much when it is so easy for them to come up short by what nature has instore for them in given year.
We can use all the science we dream up to predict what will happen on a given year. Some are vain enough to predict future returns but my two cents say, nature is the only perfect science and nature says there is no such thing as surplus.