Uhm-hmm, 18 - 20# steelhead. For every 20# steelhead, there must have been 200 7# fish, just to get some realistic perspective.

Carcassman, the Fisheries Technical Committee thought it was a science based decision (assumption really) to terminate the early hatchery winter run program, but I think that decision was already cast before the results of the genetics study were available. The assumption was that with millions upon millions of hatchery steelhead releases over 50 years, there must have been overwhelming genetic introgression with whatever few wild fish might remain. That's not how I interpret the study results however. The wild fish have no more hatchery introgression than other SW WA streams with typical to even few hatchery releases. The spawn timing separation may have been accidental, but it was very effective.

Sg