Well this thread finally went sideways I see; betting you got even a bit more than you bargained for there Darian. Hell we even got into gay marriage, artificial insemination, and womens sports (that was an impressive trio in just one post!).... not quite sure how we got there talking about steelhead, but oh what a ride eh? Kind of like a wild steelhead, fresh out of the salt; hell bent on returning in one piece!

In all seriousness, I think that most of us could agree that if hatchery steelhead were all we had we would still fish for them and still enjoy ourselves. I would also hope that most, if not all of us could agree that we should NOT be willing to accept hatchery steelhead only as a reasonable substitute for wild runs; not while there is still a chance at having viable wild steelhead returns. Am I that naive here, or can we not all agree to that much?

What I see as one of the major factors here is that some folks are so hesitant to take any chance on loosing the opportunity to fish for ANY steelhead that they are worried about the loss of support and funding for hatchery programs, while others are so concerned that any concession at all towards hatchery fish means further eroding the dwindling populations of wild steelhead and minimizing/masking the very real threat and concern for the loss of our wild steelhead completely. I'm no biologist, geneticist, or even expert steelhead dude; but even I can see that maintaining healthy wild populations should remain priority number 1, regardless of hatchery successes or failures.

Perhaps the better questions here would be what each of us would be willing to concede, and what we would be willing to loose...
I know I would be willing to give a lot, and loose a lot of fishing privileges before I would be willing to see the extinction of all of our wild steelhead. That's my personal take on it anyways.
JB