This is to MhM and FF. Sorry if I confused anyone with that post.

I re-read MhM's post about clipping only 1/2 the F1's .... effectively allocating 1/2 the hatchery production to harvest (fin-clipped bonkable fish) and the other half of hatchery production to "supplement" the gravel.

In that scenario, some of the clipped F1's could be harvested but a considerable number would still incidentally escape to the gravel.... along with all the unclipped F1's that are purposely allowed to escape onto the gravel.

The gravel is now over-run with hatch F1's, outnumbering wild-borne spawners by a factor 2-3-fold. This is genetic swamping at its best.

And what about the broodfish for the next generation of hatchery F1's? If the original F1's weren't all clipped, there's no way to be certain that the "wild" adipose-intact brood fish being taken back into the hatchery aren't actually of hatchery origin. You think you're producing a new crop of F1's but in fact you're producing some F2's or F2 hybrids.

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So lets double back and say all the hatch-origin fish will be clipped to prevent recycling hatchery-origin F1's back into the hatchery. This definitely keeps the genetics of hatchery production much cleaner. But what becomes of all that clipped production?

It returns as a harvestable surplus.... a simple commodity.... a free-swimming dollar bill with fins minus one.

Rest assured that someone is going to want to harvest them.... and half will be taken by tribal gillnets.... and those nets don't give a dam whether or not the fish is missing a fin. Net harvest will be ramped up (more nets more days) to match the volume of available hatchery fish... whatever it takes to catch their "half".... count on it. Wild fish WILL suffer from the increased exploitation.

So under the current hatch/harvest regime, the wild fish get screwed either way....

They either get swamped by hatchery fish on the gravel -OR-
They are hit with more gill-netting effort.

Take your pick, but neither seems to boost populations of wild steelhead.