Historically, salmon have always been more abundant than steelhead. Pink, chum and sockeye being the most abundant, followed by silvers and 'nooks and last and a least steelhead. The differnce in population sizes between steelhead and kings and silvers is very large.
How often do you come upon a small pool stacked with a hundred steelhead?? Never. How often among chinook and silvers. It is very possible and happens quite often.
Pink, chum and sockeye are spawning habitat limited while silvers, certain strains of chinook and steelhead are rearing habitat limited.
Out of all these species steelhead spend the most amount of time in freshwater as juveniles. Followed by silvers, certain strains of chinook and the rest of the pacific salmon.
What are these ramblings gettting at?? Salmon populations can naturally take the harvest alot easier than steelhead populations. By removing a chinook you are doing very little damage to the population. By removing a steelhead you are doing much damage because the chinook run has yet to reach their limiting factor while if you remove the steelhead, that steelhead from its certain run had its limiting factor many years prior. That is why pink and sockeyes do not do well in hatcheries but chinook, coho and steelhead do very well.

And if one finds it a necassity to kill a wild steelhead or wild salmon, please be sure that it is a male. Females are limited to the amount of sex cells (eggs) they can produce while males are not. Plus the ratio of males to females under natural conditions is usually 2:1 to 5:1 depending upon the species.

Thanks to anyone who actually read all this useless blabber. I hope in some way it makes some sense. I did my best to explain the science behind harvest of salmon vs. harverst of steelhead.

Ryan