I've talked to several fisheries biologists about the wild broodstock programs and they've been very skeptical that these fish can reproduce better in a hatchery than in the river. It makes sense to me that they'd reproduce better in the river, after all they've had 10's of thousands of years to develope their reproductive stratagies. Are we humans so arrogant as to think we can do better in a few hundred? After all, we've done nothing but screw it up so far. The benefit of the wild broodstock, to me, seems to be that you don't have to worry about the hatchery fish damaging the wild fish gene pool through interbreeding. It allows a less dangerous hatchery fish program for anglers to be able to keep their catch than having broodstock from other basins. However, if the returns are low, maybe it's not worth the expense. Personally, I prefer to fish for wild steelhead over any other fish. For sport, the wild broodstock fish don't stack up. I'd prefer the fish be left in the river and money be diverted from the hatcheries to habitat restoration. Let the fish have sex au naturale!