I see approximately zero problem with chowing down on a Lake Erie steelhead. The hatchery will make more. There's more than enough natural habitat to grow plenty of fat and healthy steelies like that one.
There's a lot of fillets and steaks on that fish.
Out West on rivers like the American and the Feather, fish from the hatchery have their adipose fins (the little fat one, icudk) clipped off. Those can be kept; the wild fish with non-clipped fins must be released.
The vast majority of steelhead in most California rivers these days are hatchery stock. Most of the original spawning habitat is either on the other side of impassable dams, or under the impoundments. But it's still a grand thing to catch steelhead trout on the American River right in the middle of Sacramento, an urban area with a population of over a million people.
Hatchery steelhead may have been artificially raised in their early life, but I'd never refer to them as "stockies". If they make it to adulthood, they've paid some serious dues.
