Easy there, Tasty. While I don't subscribe to any theory suggesting that hatchery fish are among the greatest obstacles to wild steelhead recovery, I think several decades of planting hatchery fish, without wild runs recovering, is pretty solid evidence that they haven't made any meaningful, positive impact on recovery. I suppose I should stop short of calling that "proof," but....

My point, like RUNnGUN's, was that it's probably time to rethink the purpose behind producing hatchery fish. I think they have significant value in places where degraded habitat makes in-river spawning largely non-productive. I can't prove it, but I have come to believe that their presence in systems with self-sustaining wild runs, while it does provide meaningful harvest opportunity, can have only negative impacts on the wild fish, if for no other reason than that they justify fisheries that impact wild fish, no matter how hard we try to avoid that result.

I don't advocate closing rivers designated as wild gene banks, but I do think C&R should be the only type of fishing allowed on wild stocks, regardless of how "stable" those stocks may appear. The rules would be much easier to write (and follow) without having to make exceptions for the sake of weeding out hatchery fish.