I am a little confused with the politics of the washington Hatcheries, but I have a different way of thinking on the matter. I like catching the fish on the samish river, they are not fin cliped but the come from the friday creek hatchey. At the same time I agree the wild fish need to be protected. I come from a little tiny town in northern michigan. I grew up on the eastern tip of the upper penisula with-in 50 miles of the 3 biggest lakes in the U.S.
In the early 60's Michigan traded lake trout (in WA called mackinaw) for King, pinks,and silver smolts. Michigan does not have any (that I know of) hatcheries. They went stream to stream, river to river planting smolt. I dare say the the salmon fishing in michigan rates up there with our fishing here in pugit sound the only difference is not many people target them when they get into the rivers. (I cant wait to go home in the fall now that I've learned to drift eggs) So what would be wrong with that just plant fish in rivers that dont currently have runs in them I know that some fish get lost and go up the wrong river sometimes but the small number of fish would not hurt much. .....DJ