There are alot of things we don't understand or thought of with wild steelhead. Like this thought:
So the Quilliute system has more fish coming back than man's escapement numbers says the river needs ( why was nature so stupid to let more fish than needed come back) so we try to kill the "extra fish". In reality steelhead have a wandering factor somewhere around 15 to 20%,So maybe if a river system is over escaped (can that be?) the wandering fish help seed other rivers. So if you fish the steelhead down to rock bottom they don't seed other systems very effectively.