In the state of Washington salmonoid are currently listed as a "food fish" making them legal to be commercially harvested. This is usually done by commercial trollers in the ocean where salmon are caught on hook and line to be sold commercially to seafood wholesalers where they end up in restaurants, super markets or in a can. In other places such as the Columbia River they are gill netted and their fate is the same as previously mentioned. While this commercial harvesting may not seem in best interest of anglers who are out to catch fish by hook and line, let me point out that some 100 years ago Washington State began building salmon hatcheries solely to supplement commercial fisheries.With that being said, in short no commercial fishery, no hatchery salmon.
Steelhead on the other hand are considered a sport fish, sinceit is believed they are more closely related to trout than salmonoid. Thus being placed in this category, it makes them illegal to be commercially harvested, therefore no reason for the state to raise them in hatcheries.
The states are struggling to manage what money they have ( though I believe the term mismanaged is more the norm than manage) so states are doing all they can to put money where they get the most in return. The commercial harvest of salmon is BIG MONEY, there are probably billions at stake, joint compact deals are made with adjoining states, countries, as well as tribes to divide up who gets what piece of the salmon pie. There is plenty at stake and plenty of reasons ($$$) to put more salmon into the pie, just 30 years ago small coastal towns were on the verge of turning off the lights due to the shrinking salmon seasons. Today those towns are booming.
So how do steelhead fit in to all of this? I know some of you are going to cringe and probably even accuse me of steelhead blasphemy but what if we took steelhead off the sportfish list and made it legal to commercially harvest them? PUT THE GUNS DOWN and think of this. If we commercially harvested steelhead, there would be big money in the raising of hatchery steelhead, groups like the Native Fish Society wouldnt be able to block the release of hatchery steelhead, they simply wouldnt have the finacial backing to go up against the huge commercial fishing machine. Hatcheries would be OBLIGATED to raise more hatchery steelhead rather than looking for any reason to not raise them. could you imagine winter steelhead return like last years coho retuen, probably not, but its not an impossibility.
Dont get me wrong I hold the same high esteem for steelhead that anyone reading this does, but our current progaram is not working. Some will say that there are streams that have great native steelhead fisheries but those are only working because in most cases there is zero retention, I happen to like to eat steelhead, yes eat them, a fresh summer run steelhead is one of the best table fare there is, and incredibly healthy for you at the same time. I dont expect steelhead to ever be listed as a food fish, I'm just asking you to think outside the box and imagine the possibilities if they were.
