The problem with current hatchery practices is we leave them confined to long, wait for the imprint timeframe before release, let them go early and imprint to the system. We had real great results with very early release, on the Satsop, the creel surveys months later showed very healthy, and size compared to the wild counter part, these where released two weeks after clipping. Little guys. I gave 3-400 hours annually to the program, and seen the results, and see them now, And I miss it. We mated the biggest to biggest and returned very nice fish, one tipped the scales at 33lbs and it was clipped, but the scale samples and dorsel fin suggested it was an early release, it those days we where also returning a strong wild component. We never bred out of F1's, but took them to the upper reaches of the tribes in the system and released them, this helped with those numbers