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facility and also in response to the continuing drought. In wet years, in the Sacramento River system steelhead are trucked to the San Francisco Bay estuary. The on-site steelhead releases from Mokelumne River-Fish Hatchery also serve as put-and-take fishery, while the off-site releases are trucked to Rio Vista (delta area) or the estuary. Reliable return rates to the Sacramento River Basin hatcheries were not available.. However, based on results achieved with chinook salmon, off-site (downstream or estuarine) releases are assumed to yield higher ocean and inland returns. Private programs (includes county and local projects) produced 338,089 steelhead in 1989. The largest programs were (average annual production): Rowdy Creek Fish Hatchery, 75,000; the Mendocino County Fish & Game Commission, 70,000;. Monterey Bay Salmon and Trout Project, 45,000; and Gualala River steelhead Project, 30,000. Chinook Winter chinook salmon are known only to the upper Sacramento River and this race is a federally listed threatened species. Coleman NFH represents the only entity propagating winter chinook. Only one adult pair was spawned at Coleman in 1989.2 Spring chinook salmon are native in the Klamath and Sacramento River Basins and are represented by hatchery and wild stocks. The- status of the wild stocks are not well- known and may be tenuous. The South Fork Trinity River spring chinook salmon abundance has declined and this geographical stock may become a candidate for state listing as a threatened species. 4 Fall chinook salmon are the dominant anadromous salmonid in California. The CDFG and FWS are the largest producers of fall chinook salmon,. annually releasing approximately 30 million and 16 million juveniles, respectively. The U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, various Indian tribes, and private groups also propagate fall chinook salmon. Private groups produce over 1 million fall chinook annually (Table 4). Federal and state hatcheries commonly truck their releases, particularly in the Sacramento River system. Trucking reduces fish loss at numerous water pumping stations and diversions. Sacramento River fish are usually trucked to San Francisco Bay or the river delta. Another outplanting technique used to enhance survival is to divide release groups and plant into adjacent drainages or different locations within the same drainage. Outplanted and trucked release chinook groups have exhibited higher survival than those released on-site. Private programs have also experienced higher ocean contribution rates and inland return success from yearling-sized releases rather than fingerling releases. 2ibid. 18