GBL,

Please, what are you talking about? I'm calling BS on that working so well. You need to post better information if you want some credibility. Who was fry planting steelhead from wild broodstock in the 70s and where? Smalma and I have some experience with wild steelhead broodstock programs in the Sauk and Skagit Rivers.

Planting FED (as opposed to unfed) fry from wild steelhead broodstock can be an effective way to seed unutilized habitat. I've got the citations around here somewhere from studies in BC indicating a fry to smolt survival rate averaging 3%. Of the 3% that survive to smolt, during the "good" marine survival years of the 70s and 80s, you might get up to 10% adult return. 10% of 3% equals 3 hundredths of one percent of the total fry you planted. And that is only if you scatter planted those fry at a density of one fry per every two square meters of small stream space, since fry need slow velocity shallow water to rear in initially. If you hauled buckets of fry and dumped the entire contents of the bucket in one place, I assure you that you did it all wrong, and further reduced the potential fry to smolt survival rate. In order to achieve the low success (3%) I described above, you need to literally scatter a few fry, like a half dozen at a time, into each little pool (12 square meters, minimum). It typically takes about 1/4 mile of creek or side channel to properly plant a 5 gallon bucket of steelhead fry. And this is assuming that the water you stocked was not already occupied by wild steelhead fry from naturally spawning fish.

I'm skeptical of the results you describe because I'm not aware of any data supporting them, and because our experience on the Sauk and Skagit, rearing wild fish to smolt size and releasing them, on average produced no more returning adults than would have returned had the broodstock been left in the river to spawn naturally. With the inherently lower survival rate associated with fry plants, you should understand why I question any glowing results you allude to.

Further, please explain the source of the adipose clipped hatchery steelhead you caught in the Snoqualmie River in 1976. I am interested because WDG (now WDFW) didn't begin the wide scale ad clipping of hatchery steelheaad until the 1984 return year.

It's one thing to suggest or promote alternative fish culture or management techniques that may offer constructive promise. However, it does no one any favor to allude significant benefits from methods already tried where the resulting observations indicated few or no benefits. In other words, who are you trying to kid?

Sg