P.S. Speaking just for myself, I contribute to broodstock programs in this way...if I catch a broodstocked fish, I kill it just as fast as if it were a Chambers Creek turd, and greatly lament the fact that wild fish gametes had to be removed from the gene pool to make it.
Absolutely! I kill them before they ever leave the river! Fin clipped? It dies! The blue heron on the river I fish really like those broodstock smolt.....
As for using broodstock programs as a method of restoration? That is about the biggest myth there is. Name me one river where a sustained and non-supplemented run of steelhead is occurring because of broodstock?
The Wilson, Kilchis and Nestucca were no worse off with the Alsea hatchery product of years back as long as they were kept in the lower rivers to limit interaction with wild steelhead. By the time the wild steelhead arrived in numbers, February through April, this Alsea hatchery strain was pretty much finished and their impact on the wild steelhead was minimal. These Alsea are still used but in far less numbers and they provided early winter harvest opportunities.
These days ODFW has distributed the broodstock smolt throughout the system and the chance of inter action is far greater. The broodstock programs are harmful to wild fish in so many ways!
When I said bait guide welfare program take this into consideration. Before the broodstock programs there was never harvest opportunities that late in the winter.Now, however, there is the opportunity for guides to run paid trips during the late winter and early spring. Now they run all kinds of "wild steelhead rodeos" and get paid to collect wild steelhead for the broodstock program. Some Portland metro guides even moved to the north coast when this broodstock $[censored] began. So tell me who benefits most from a broodstock program.
The bottom line is if it smell like $hit then it probably is $hit!
Barney dammit! You know why too.
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