I think you want to consider several things: I can't believe I was living in the good old day during my childhood. I used to fish the Dewatto & Tahuya as well as many others like it growing up. Many of these streams also were not nessecarily stocked with hatchery fish.

Many of these smaller streams allowed wild steelhead kill. Look at their productivity now, they could never sustain the demand. My opinions on increased crowding are as follow:

1.) Since almost all our streams once held runs of wild steelhead, the fish were more spread out through the river system, not kegged up at the hatchery hole. More rivers and parts of the river system to fish, spreading out the population of anglers. 2.) Improved infastructure, roads, transportation, disposable income and less rivers open to fish during the season, who else remembers when the Dungeness used to be open until the end of April? 3. INTERNET!
Anyone others.