Am I missing something, or is economic breakeven on hatchery fish the $400 each one caught adds to the state economy? As long as hatchery fish are reserved for the people who place the highest value on them (i.e, spend the most money catching them), namely the sportsfishermen, then it may make sense to use taxpayer money to fund hatcheries.

I guess the mathematics and economics gets more daunting if half the hatchery run is netted by one party or another, making the survivors available to sportsmen $500 fish. If you can't stop the netting of the hatchery fish, then maybe you're right and there's little economic justification for summer run-bred hatcheries. Boy, that's depressing.