You make some sound points, but I suspect you do not understand current hatchery practices here in the U.S. Your hatcheries are light years ahead ours. By and large we still use fish that originated in other rivers, (Chambers Creek and Skamania fish are found in rivers all over the state.) We do not take brood stock with hook and line; we do not try to use only wild fish for brood stock and our hatchery fish are of nowhere near the quality of yours.

I know Vancouver Island rivers are hurting and have no idea why. I do know that in most cases hatchery fish are not the problem, but I doubt they are the solution either. I think you should consider using hatcheries to sustain wild strain of fish from that river system. But I would caution against simply dumping the rivers full of hatchery fish.

Until a few years ago most Vancouver Island rivers produced considerably more fish per angler day than did our hatchery panted rivers.

I have had many 10 fish days on the Gold, and almost never have had that many fish on one of our hatchery planted rivers.

Remember too that some anglers tend to exaggerate. I have not looked at our catch record data recently, but a few years ago approximately 45% of our steel headers reported catching zero steelhead in a year. As I recall less than 20% caught more than 25 in a year. A few years back the catch per angler day on the Gold wild fish was near one per anglers.

You are right; we should be careful what we wish for. There is a reason so many U.S. anglers head to Canada to fish steelhead. and so few Canadians come this way.