What Smalma said: "In regards to the Forks Creek and Skagit steelhead I still believe that the differences in spawning time of the respective wild populations and the very different hydrographs in the two basins are significant factors."

And I still need to finish reading the paper to see if wild steelhead were sampled in other tributaries and the mainstem. It seems like the sample design would display the worst possible case of introgression. I'm not saying that the hatchery fish don't have negative affects because I've written before that they do. But the context of sampling and reporting matters a lot when it comes to interpreting the results. I think the reporting of conclusions in the absence of sufficient context is making this genetics issue more confusing to the layman than necessary. It's bad enough that many of the professional fishheads have joined one side of the argument or the other, not realizing they need to better understand the issue within a contextual framework that causes it to make sense.

Sg