>
> A couple of quick questions for you Steelhead experts. The fin clipped fish
> I talked about seemed too large to be small steelhead. Do some hatchery
> steelhead never make the run out to see and stay in the river year around? I
> would assume that just as every rainbow is not a steelhead, not every
> fingerling in the hatchery makes the trip downstream. I will have to profess
> my total ignorance on the topic.
Thanks for your great report. I love to read reports like these,
especially after another no-fish weekend.
First off, I am not a fisheries expert nor do I play one on TV.
But I work with a few. And there are several things that fisheries
biologists like to argue about, and one is the rainbow/steelhead issue.
One camp says that rainbows and steelhead cannot co-exist on the same
river system, and the other camp says they can.
The vast majority of the steelhead and rainbows that have been planted
in the world are said to come from stock from the McCloud River in
Northern California. These Shasta rainbows are about 100 miles from the
Pacific without natural barrier to the ocean, presumably with a native
steelhead run from the coast.
Within populations of salmonids there is a tendency to wander, to
different streams as adults, to being chinook that rear for a year in
the river versus going almost straight out to sea. This also seems to
relate to in the sockeye staying in the natal lake rather than leaving
as most do after their first year in the lake.
Now, McCloud rainbows were the stock that produced the Great Lakes
steelhead, so that seems to show that there is some tendency to migrate,
as in other places these fish stay put.
I tend to feel that there is some connection between rainbows and
steelhead, and I have personal experience like yours. Last winter I
caught a nice chunky rainbow from the Snoqualmie River while
steelheading. But there are still those who will refute my observation
and tell me it was a steelhead smolt. Humph. I didn't see any parr
marks, it kinda looked like a rainbow to me.
Take care of that knee.
Rob
