Hi Brian:
The guy to talk to is Denis Lee who is a retired fisheries biologist with the CDFW and authored two books
on Steelhead. I'm sure you can get his contact information by Googling him.

It's great to see someone such as yourself taking the time to contribute your valued opinion to the CDFW
about protecting our fisheries resources. Wish more individuals would do that. I'm not sure whether or not you are aware of this but our winter Steelhead are an introduced sub species that did not exist in the L American River prior to the construction of the dams. The hatchery was unsuccessful in spawning the indigenous fish that incidentally were spring spawners rather than winter spawners as are the current strain. The current strain was imported from the Eel River (and others) and are much larger than the indigenous fish they replaced. The Eel River fish were introduced for the purpose of providing recreation for fishermen and not necessarily for the purpose of attempting to re-stablish wild fish in the L AR. If the winter months were closed to fishing then the CDFW would have no reason to continue their Steelhead spawning program. Just a thought