Bankwalker/Breezer-
An interesting idea but as Breezer points there are various logistic/economic obstacles to such and approach.

The first is that fish raised at say Reiter that are truck to another trib and release still tend to migrate back to Reiter.

Given that information the use of conditioning ponds (where fish were trucked to the ponds and held for 4 to 6 weeks prior to release so that they might imprint to the site) is the next logical approach. As with many ideas that actually has been tried. 25 years ago on the Snohmish system there were at least 9 active conditioning ponds (On the Raging, Tolt, Pilchuck, Barr, Woods, Wagley, Sultan, North Sky and South Fork Sky). It was found that they not as successful as hoped. Many of the returning adult still returned to their orginal rearing sites.

In addition as Breezer suggested predation was an issue. It would be pretty expensive to predator proof the ponds and in this day and age kill the various predators is not a PC approach.

There can be a significant ecosystem cost to the developement and use of the ponds. Obviously one would want to have the ponds in the anadromous areas. That means the ponds could impact developing eggs and fry of various species. In addition that type of habitat attracts young juvenile salmonids (especially coho) which would be vulnerable to predation by the steelhead smolts prior to release. Again not sure that trading potential hatchery benefits for known impacts on wild populations are advisable.

Trapping the release sites to remove the returning hatchery fish has its own set of problems. Those sites would have to be staffed during the migration periods. 1) to prevent vandalism and 2) to allow other wild anadromous fish (coho and sea-run cuthroat) that would be migrating upstream at the same time for spawning - the coho spawn in the Sky tribs through most of January and the cutts from January thur May.

Finally such an approach typically results in those fish returning to the release areas ending up in areas where most anglers can not fish - private property. This combined with the fish being spread out through the system results in few fish being harvested by the sport anglers. Do you think in this era of poor returns it makes good sense to adopt strategies that will limit the access to those few fish that do return.

Bankwalker -
It is clear that you have some strong feelings about the inadequacy of the hatchery program at Reiter. I'm interested in other ideas you may have to improve that program that would likely be successful and not put wild stocks at additional risk.

Tight lines
Curt