I have pounded on this exact point more than once, and came to the conclusion that most everyone on this board thinks they are a good idea.

You are right, they only produce a supposedly higher quality, river specific, harvestable stock. Key word being harvestable, as all are clipped because they are deemed "hatchery fish".

I likewise have tried to emphasize that planting the offspring in the fry stage would kill the hatchery classification argument. The answer I got was that the mortality rate was far higher when planted as fry.

While I never asked this part of the question, perhaps now is the time.....Is the high rate of mortality of fry plants a comparison of planted fry vs. planted smolts? or a comparison of planted fry vs. naturally spawned fry? My suspicions are that the comparison is made as hatchery fry vs. hatchery smolts. No surprise, right? I would have to believe that a naturally spawned vs. hatchery spawned comparison would reveal quite the opposite, i.e., that the hatchery fry hatch/survival is much greater than natural spawning.

My feeling is that if we are taking wild fish out of the system, and turning their hard fought for offspring into hatchery fish, is that in the wild fish's recovery best interest????