That's my point Rivrguy. We have literally decades of data on how well brood stocking of wild fish performs. While there is now way (well there is but it would takes years) to both C&R and not C&R a fish we can look at populations. What is egg-fry for a hatchery stock vs. the broomstick? What is the egg-smelt and fry-smelt for those two groups?

We always assume, at least the folks who explained it to me, that it the process of domestication that resulted in better survivals. Maybe domestication involves reducing internal responses to stress.