Plunker –
I have always enjoyed your posts and don’t really consider that we have arguments, rather having interesting exchanges of ideas.

Regarding your questions - First let start with I that really enjoy fishing and will fishing any fish that swims and bit a hook. Have even spend considerable time fishing for bass (Gasp!!). However what I really enjoy is fishing for wild fish in their native habitats – wild fish in wild rivers if you will.

Given that my priority of interest and what I feel should be management priorities are:
1) Native fish in their native waters.
2) Wild fish of local species
3) Exotics

While probably not popular here I feel that native resident trout or even whitefish or sculpins are as valuable as steelhead in a natural ecosystem and should be given equal support.

The Green River summer run case:
While the naturalized summers in of themselves may not be undesirable while they impact the native fish in their home waters then I feel they need to go. As I stated earlier any production of summer steelhead in the Green will be at a cost of reduced winter production.

You raised the issue of those composite wild stocks (mixtures of hatchery and native stocks). With the composite stocks as well as non-native wild fish if we are to manage for them in a river system then that management should all those populations to develop into the most productive stock possible. Allow natural selection to occur so that they in sync with the environment.

Regarding the South Fork Stillaguamish and Deer Creek – My priorities are to maintain the habitats as they naturally existed if possible. For example the summer and winter steelhead of Deer Creek have used different habitats due to the partial velocity barriers found in the Canyon. The steep gradient within the canyon typically creates a number of sharp drops/falls that are difficult passage points that limits the fish access to the upper 15 miles of the basin. Since the 1995 flood a falls about 1.5 miles upstream of the mouth of Deer Creek has been a particular difficult passage point with at times hundreds of summer fish stacking up below that point. Dozens even kill themselves in their jumping at the fall. Many anglers thought that the State should step in and blow the falls with dynamite so that the summer fish would have an easier access to the upper basin. However it is that very situation that has made the Deer Creek fish what they are. If the falls were removed then the winter fish would gain access to the upper basin and in time would likely replace the summer fish as the selection factor that favored the summer fish would have been removed. I would prefer to maintain the natural diversity of fish stocks and species that developed in our diverse rivers.

In the situation on the upper South Fork Stillaguamish if we are going to allow steelhead to exist there then we should allow the summer and winters sort out the habitats as to which species would dominate. My guess is that the summers would become the dominant life form of O. mykiss.

Hope that has addressed at least some of you questions.

Tight lines
S malma