Salmo G. / Smalma - Do we have any escapement numbers for the Snohomish basin prior to hatchery supplementation? It sounds like hatchery operations for steelhead began in the early 1900s. Why would they have started supplementing if there were large stocks of wild fish?

The point I am getting to - we know in the Snohomish basin we have a couple of wild summer run stocks. Each of these is comprised of just a few hundred returning fish. They appear to be quite stable populations.

What is to say that without hatchery influence the stable population of the wild winters isn't but a couple thousand?

Looking over data from the 70s and 80s it appears that the years there were large catches of wild fish coincides with the years of large hatchery plants (unclipped fish? ).