I have over the last 25yrs, and it started from the fish at the Cowlitz many years ago, Stripping ripe clipped hens and bucks off there eggs and milt, We started with a fish tank, then moved to the kids blue pool, and they hatched, it was awsome, we would put them in a friends pond and let them grow up abit and open the gate for freedom. over the next few years from time to time you would see some adults waiting on the outside of the gate to get back in. Now if we catch a ripe pair in the same day we just strip the eggs, squeez the milt in a bucket and dump the eggs in the 15ft of gravel from the spring where the pond is fed to the pond, in the late summer there are little guys hitting bugs on the surface like rain drops. they hatch, they grow, and they return. without us feeding them, just giving them a place to play. when I was young, My dad was high up in the forest service, And I would get to go with the local Bio for the State, help with wiers, help with egg boxes, which work. and do alot of redd counting. We floated down the rivers with fins , masks, snorkles in the summer counting steelhead smolt, and cut throat. And since I have given many hours to these fish. And have learned alot about them. They are an awsome creature. But they need our help, moreso then in just habitat, at first the Hood river broodstock project was a great success, now years later, the thinking has changed. Or really was it the people and there perspective has changed. you can read anything you want into any written document, Todd finds the negitive in what he asked Slab to read, And Slab finds the postiive aspects with-in the document. it is not science it is preception. If 2000 fish hit the gravel, 2000 return as a result from them, if the numbers where higher, we would not always be sitting on about the same escapement. if with 40 pairs, I could raise them and release them and let return, I would have about the same return as the 2000, and even with a decreased spawning success. it is still more then the 2000 mother nature supplied, and thus the numbers should rise. Mother natures flooding has caused more damage, and it doesn't care about fitness. She has become a distructive force of late, 50yr 100yr floods are becoming more of the norm them a rarity. raise them release them and help them through broodstocking, let them go with high fins, the Hatchery wild have them, why not broodstock where they can become escapement......fish on, Matt