another old memory is that WDG put CWTs in steelhead in the late 70s, early 80s. At that time, CWTs came with an ad-clip. Also, BC F&W CWT'd their steelhead so that is another source of clipped fish back then.

Salma-
Great info. I was not really promoting it just reporting my experiences back then. I also have been on the Snohomish system since about 1960 so I have many memories to.
You are probably right that all that seeding and extra work did not do much, it was great fishing back then and it all seemed to crash around the same time as Salmo said, the ocean conditions went bad and that had more to do with it than anything.
That Summer Run fishing on the Skykomish back then was world class, it did look like Reiter was the answer, at least for those of us that were hooking 10 of them a day!
Oh, and the seeding, you may not like it, but it made us feel good!!!

Or a Rivrguy wannabe?

Carcassman -
I too recall that the coded wire tags (CWTs) were used then and that the adipose fin clip was sequestered for only those fish with the CWTs., In fact it took a couple of years effort to get the approval (from PFMC) to use the adipose fin clip for mass marking rather than for CWTs. That delayed the mass marking of PS steelhead a couple of years.

GBL -
Another thing that was going on during the 1970s was the rapid increase in the fisheries off the west coast of Vancouver Island. By the late 1970s those fisheries were taking huge numbers of Puget Sound coho (and Chinook).

I agree that such fry programs are excellent "feel good" programs that have some educational value. In addition those wild brood stock programs were great fun; especially when those involved got to fish closed waters. In fact about the only time that support for that type of program waned was when those "experimental" programs became the "norm" and the expected production (returning adults) were included in management - forecasts, # of harvestable fish, etc. The result of course was that terminal fisheries and even worst the escapements relied on those "paper fish". That of course fosters continued over-fishing/under escaements.

Tight lines
Curt

Hatchery programs of most any sort tend to have a quick and measurable increase in available fish, but tend to be self-limiting, and when the program by its own characteristics start to limit its production, everyone involved looks for an outside problem to blame it on...when the problem is usually the program itself.

That's why the "if we only planted ten times as many smolts, we'd have ten times as many fish!" argument virtually never works...ever.

Fish on...

Todd