I've always wondered, why don't steelhead return to the rivers in as large of numbers as salmon do? Is it because they enter the rivers year round? There would be some excellent fishing if pools got stacked with steelhead like they do with chum and silvers. Mabey then I could actually catch one.

Stillyman,

Steelhead populations are invariably smaller than salmon populations in the same river because steelhead place a greater demand on their habitat. Pink and chum salmon runs tend to be the largest populations because they only require suitable spawning and egg incubation habitat (lots of riffles with clean gravel, plus some spring fed gravel for the chums). Pink and chum fry head almost immediately to river estuaries after emerging from the gravel. They spend very little time feeding and growing in the river.

Chinook require spawning habitat and juvenile rearing habitat. On the west side, most chinook rear only 2 to 4 months in freshwater before migrating to estuaries and the ocean. Interior chinook, like the mid-Columbia tributaries and Snake River, are often springers that rear in freshwater about 1 year before migrating to the ocean. They need more juvenile rearing habitat than fall chinook to achieve that additional growth.

Coho salmon require juvenile rearing habitat in addition to spawning habitat. Coho typically rear in freshwater for one year, so they need more space per individual juvenile. This is why coho runs are generally smaller than pink and chum runs, and chinook tend to be somewhere in between.

Steelhead require only a small amount of spawning habitat, preferably well dispersed throughout a watershed. Steelhead need suitable juvenile rearing for 2 or more years of freshwater rearing. It takes a lot more stream space to grow a 2 year old steelhead smolt than for a 1 year old coho smolt. As a result, steelhead populations are among the smallest of the anadromous species. Sea run cutthroat have similar habitat requirements, but use slightly different spawning and rearing areas. Their populations tend to be similar to, or somewhat larger than, steelhead runs, depending on the nature of the watershed that produces them.

Dolly varden, or bull trout, have even more specific requirements, especially for spawning. So even though their life history is similar to sea run cutthroat, their population size is usually much smaller, at least in Washington coastal rivers.

As a result of each species adaptations to surviving in tributaries of the north Pacific Ocean, natural steelhead runs will nearly always be smaller than the salmon runs to the same river system. Where there are exceptions, there is usually one or more specific environmental needs of salmon that is not being met, which would allow the steelhead population to be larger, but not likely much larger than if salmon were able to be present. A good example would be the Wind River before there was a fish ladder. Salmon could not leap Shipard's Falls, so steelhead were the only anadromous fish to occupy the Wind. After building the fish ladder and Carson national fish hatchery, the Wind has become a major producer of spring chinook. However, the run is almost entirely hatchery chinook. A small run might persist without the hatchery, but unique environmental characteristic have made the Wind predominately a steelhead river, if we're talking about wild fish production potential.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

Thanks for the great reply salmo. I've studied 3 different spawning streams for the past few years and have only seen 2 steelhead ever which was last april, but see hundreds of salmon. Always wondered why I don't come across more. I've never seen steelhead spawn in the mainstem of a stream although they probably do, but pinks and chums can spawn from the headwaters to tidewater. To bad all the species that feed in fresh water(steelhead, dollies, & cutts) can't be as plentiful as the species that don't. It's not fair.