Salmo,
I too was curious about his assertion that there were once fourteen-pound cutthroat/steelhead hybrids in the Elwha. I heard recently that Curt Kraemer thinks that most of the largest sea-run cutthroat in the Stillaguamish are cutthroat/steelhead hybrids. These fish don't, however, achieve anything near fourteen pounds. There seems to be a break in the sizes of Stillaguamish cutthroat; up to twenty inches and from about twenty-three up to twenty-five inches. These larger fish are very few in number, exhibit the typical cutthroat spotting pattern and coloration, and reduced or absent basibranchial teeth. It's hard to imagine how a cutthroat could grow to a size of over ten pounds given the customary cutthroat habits of spending less than a full year in saltwater each year and only feeding in the estuary and nearshore waters.