NM -
The Kalama steelhead research crew is in the middle of the evulation of a wild steelhead brood stock program in SW Washington. Believe the early results indicate that the smolt to adult survival has been good however it is too early to answer some of yur other questions. It is likely another 4 or 5 more years will be neccesaary - perhaps more.

A wild brood stock program on the Sauk River in the NW Washington during the early 1980s had poor smolt to adult survivals. In part that may have been due to the extremely late spawning timing of the wild fish. That made it neccessary to rear the fish for two years prior to release of the smolts. Recaptures of marked returning fish indicated that it was unlikely that returns matched the number of fish used for brood stock.

I don't know much about the Snider Creek program; I'm sure that Bob could provide more details. I would expect that if the returns of adults is anything like the Chambers fish in the system (better than 5% smolt to adult survival) there should be enough returnees around to get a feel for the success of the program. With 50,000 to 100,000 smolt @ a 5% return rate one would expect 2,500 to 5,000 returning adults. Even if the net fishery was catching 60% of the run (beleive the netting schelude is set up to take something like 55% of the Chambers run) there should be 1,000 to 2,000 fish in the fishery. I would expect that to create a "hatchery meat hole" at the mouth of Snider Creek. In addition the use of the early returned fish should produce early returning fish so that early season (Dec-Jan) sport catches should have a high portion of these hatchery fish.

Tight lines
Smalma