Double Haul -
I agree Bill's observations are of interest and thought provoking. He has raised some valid issues that deserve consideration. I prefer not to get into a indepth critique of his document here (have provide comments in other discussions).

I raised the issue about the amount spend on hatchery steelhead here as one of the implications of your post of "excessive" hatchery spending is that cuts can be made without major impacts. Remember the backlash from the fly fishing community when the North Fork Stillaguamish was not planted with summer steehead one year. You would of thought that WDFW had attacked their families!

Let's look what the elimination of hatchery plants might mean to some of the streams in your backyard - that is the Snohomish and Stillaguamish systems. Certainly given the current status of wild winters (yes Pautzke I'll get to that in a minute) without hactchery returns those systems would be closed to all steelhead fishing during the winter/spring! The same might be the case for the summer fishery - though it would be an interesting discussion about whether fishing for cutthroat in the late summer/fall or salmon in the fall could be structured so that steelhead weren't targeted. Are you or others willing to not fish those systems at any time?

Goose has hit the nail on the head. There is a considerable costs to wild fish protection that doesn't show up in WDFW's budget. In fact the legislature (us?) has structured WDFW doesn't have primary managment responsibility protecting much of the habitat needed by the fish. They have permitting authority over only that work that occurs in the wetted stream. The up-land work is controlled by Counties, other agencies, etc. The best tool for wild fish production is protection of existing habitat - this has no direct budget attached to it. There are costs (often large costs) but it is usually in the form of lost ecomonic opportunity and as such doesn't show up in a budget statement.

Pautzke -
There has been genetic work in a variety of areas in the state. One area that I'm familar with is that in North Puget Sound. Some of the very earliest genetic work down with anadromous fish was with steelhead by Dr. Allendorf (?) in the early and mid 1970s. Because of the early work it was possible to go where some of that work was done (in this case the Skagit) and compare how much more like hatchery fish the wild fish had become. WDFW (Phelps) was able to measure the genetic distance between the hatchery and wild fish in the Skagit in the early 1970s and 1990s. After 5 generations of interactions the wild fish were no more like the hatchery fish than in the early 1970s. There remain considerable differences between the two populations. The age structure, run timing and spawn timing diffrences between the two populations remain, that is they remain very much wild fish. (I can supply more details if you wish). It should be noted that separation was not maintianed in some other areas (especially where wild fish spawn early and/or the hatchery spawners greatly outnumber wild fish.

WDFW's earliest genetic studies of hatchery/wild interactions were done on the Kalama beginning in 1978. Some of your concerns with the mangement on the upper Kalama may be due in part to the need to complete various aspects of those studies. It is an unfortunate reality that collection of information to support changes often buts the burden on the wild resource.

Tight lines
Smalma