Nick,

Outsider or not, when it comes to trout and steelhead (and steelhead are trout), you get it. The numbers of naturally produced fish are too few to support traditional catch and kill fisheries since about 1968 (when WA human population was about 2.8 million). The reason is too damn many people and too damn much habitat degradation resulting from too damn many people. Worse yet, most PS rivers can no longer produce enough wild steelhead to even support CNR fishing, although a handful might if marine survival increases enough. Anybody who thinks the outcome has to include wild steelhead kill fishing or none at all is just setting themselves up for disappointment. Or maybe they're just at the end of an evolutionary change, incapable of adapting to changing conditions.

Under current conditions I can't think of any hatchery steelhead program in PS that makes sense, biologically or economically. When you cannot even get enough hatchery adults back to the rack to meet broodstock needs, it's not possible to call the program viable. And most PS hatchery winter run programs are hovering around that value lately. Just to make sure I'm not being misunderstood, I'm not opposed to hatchery steelhead programs. I just want to support programs that achieve acceptable biological and economic results.

Meanwhile, I'm going to focus my efforts on perfecting bull trout streamer flies. They will probably look like chinook and steelhead smolts.

Sg