Bodysurfer hit the nail on the head - "what is a successful hatchery program?"

The tread started with a report from Oregon that hatchery fish are not very successful spawners in the wild. In other words relying on hatchery fish to seed our rivers maybe a flawed approach.

Baitchucker - The fact that the Vedder gets fish back to the river may or may not mean is it a successful program - depends on your definition of a successful program! If it is just to get fish back to the river to catch then it certainly seems to be working. However, I haven't seen any information from BC that is refutes the Oregon findings on the inability of hatchery fish to be productive spawners.

There appears to be growing evidence that two factors need to be considered to evaluate whether a hatchery broodstock can be successfully used to supplement wild production: 1) acceptable genetic backgroud and 2) behavorially adapted to the wild envirnoment. Even when the fish have an acceptable genetic background (wild brood stock) they can still fail (measured as being less productive than naturally produced fish) as natural spawners because the fry/parr/smolts/or adults have "hatchery behaviors" rather than "wild behaviors". This "behavioral problem" is likely related to the length of time spent in the hatchery.

Robert Allen -
Your observations of the steelhead spawning just in the small tribs is interesting. Typcially it is common to see the various salmonids using different portions of a watershed. Cuuthroat seem to most commonly found in the small "step across" tribs, the coho in larger streams (after several "step acrosses" come together. The steelhead downstream of the coho. As with all fish issues there is substanial overlap. Steelhead in most of their range are large trib and mainstem fish. I would define "large trib" as one where more than knee boots would be needed to wade the stream. The other salmon tend to be found in areas than the smaller tribs.

In a typical coastal tributary stream with cutthroat, coho, and steelhead the fish distribution typicaly all cutthroat in the headwater areas, then cuthroat/coho, then coho, then coho/steelhead and finally steelhead. The above assumes that all three are relatively healthy stocks. If some reason one is lacking or severely depressed then the others will fill in the void. For example if coho were missing then one would expect to see the cutthroat distribution extend downstream and the steelhead upstream.

Tight lines
Smalma