Good summary Sg. Both of the reporters (JJ & Quinn) above are simply describing what they found. In my opinion, however, conclusions from the early 70's don't really have much bearing on current management decisions other than perhaps offering some historic perspective. As Sg points out, things are quite different now than when JJ made his observations. For instance hatchery releases in the Skagit increased dramatically from the 50K reported by JJ to ~300K annually from the late 70's through the 90's. In the early 2000's, they increased to over 500K annually (If some are good, more are better, eh?). They have now been "reduced" to ~225K per year. Even if the natural populations remained the same size, I would expect to see some different results in terms of contribution of hatchery fish. And as Sg points out, there has been - from 0% in JJ's time to ~20% now.

I doubt that even JJ would consider that a success.