I caught a steelhead yesterday. I think it was a very early summer run. It was nice and bright with just a hint of red showing down the side. very long and skinney probably only about #6. It was a hatchery so I kept it. When I cleaned it the meat was white? Has anyone seen this on a steelhead before? There wasn't any sine of eggs or anything in it, and when I picked it up a clear liquid cam out of it sort of like it was peeing? Any how I am just wondering if anyone ,ight give me some insight on this fish> Thank you. Buck

Sounds like a down-stream fish. It has already spawned.

SA

yep, a downstream winter-run. Many will rebrighten and almost look like a new fish ... pretty common

I thought hatchery fish didn't spawn. But what do I know,I'm just an old man.

Could it be a recycled fish?

You caught a down river fish.You can tell by the way they come right to you,how slender they are,also by missing scales.

Ok thank you, I can accept that I caught a spawned out downriver fish that looked fresh. Why was the meat white? And if I catch another fish like this are they worth eating? I gave this one to my neighbor who is an old man and isn't able to get out.

When I was young and it was still legal to kill wild fish I killed a couple of comebacks before I knew what I was doing. They can sometimes put up a great fight and look really bright to boot. But the meat is marginal at best. One sure fire way to tell if it's a come back or not is to check the bottom of the tail fin. If it looks a bit worn there's a good chance its been digging up gravel. As far as the bucks I've gotten bucks that look dark but still have nice red meat. With the way fishing is now I never have to worry about it anymore since 99.9% of all my Steelhead get released.

Buck, knock off the kidding would you.

hmmmm.. I bonked a 16lb Chromer Hen at bluecreek this year.. full of eggs.. had white meat.. tasted fine to me..

Old Man,

Hatchery fish do spawn, just not successfully.

Buck,

The meat is white because the fish has used up most of its stored energy. The longer a steelie stays away from the ocean, the whiter the meat becomes.

Sniggler,

Don't know the particulars, but the red color to the flesh of salmon/steelhead comes from certain crustaceans they eat in the ocean. They actually dye farm-raised salmon to simulate real salmon meat because the farm raised fish eat pellets. There may be certain individual fish that do not eat a particular food source. I remember a smallmouth bass I used for a fish ecology project in college. This bass wouldn't eat the minnows I bought to feed my bass. Had to seine crayfish to get that one bass to eat!

Wild Chrome. Thanks for the info I didn't realize that the fish meat got the color from somthing they ate. Pretty cool actually. I assume then that is the same thing for trout, they msut eat something in fresh water that colors their meat also? Do you know how much weight a fish typically will lose when they spawn? The one I caught was about #6 but could have easily gon ten or 12 it was just really skinny.

Buck,

I don't have any stats on how much weight they lose, but I can tell you that a very thin steelhead will weigh about 30% less than an average girth steelhead of the same length. Likewise, a really fat or big-shouldered steelhead will weigh about 30% more than an average steelhead of the same length. This is real helpful in estimating the weight of a steelhead you want to release if you know how much an average steelhead of that length would weigh. Ex. a 32 inch "average" steelhead weighs about 10 pounds. A spawned out 32 inch steelie would weigh 20 to 30% less (7 to 8 pounds). A girthy 32 inch steelie will weigh 12 or 13 pounds.

Fall backs (steelhead) that head back to the ocean are called "kelts"

Wild Chrome,
if what you have just told the "old man" is true, that "Hatchery fish do spawn, just not successfully",why then is it that everyone is getting so excited about hatchery fish competing with wild fish?

What size shorts did you say you had on?

Cowlitzfisherman
Is the taste of the bait worth the sting of the hook????

DAMN good info wild Crome.....well said, but yes hatchery fish will spawn, usually not succsesfully, but enough are that it does make a difference

Cowlitz,

I have to have custom shorts made for me by a horse Tack dealer.

Regarding the spawning of hatch fish, are you trolling? We've been there, done that. In a nutshell, hatchery fish compete with nates for spawning gravel and dramatically lower a wild fish's offsprings' chances for survival /reproduction when they interbreed. Last, by taking wild fish out of the rivers to be used in wild broodstock programs, you reduce the spawning success of the next wild generation because you've removed wild spawners from the river, which produce many more returning adults/egg than in a hatchery. Clear now, isn't it!?!?!

Cowlitzfisherman, A lot of the competition detrimental to wild fish occurs when thousands of hatchery smolts are dumped into a river system with limited nutrient levels. The hatchery fish are very aggressive feeders; I'm sure you've observed their behavior in the hatchery ponds when the feeding machine kicks on. That said, I wish they would slug Cedar River with a bunch of "new, improved" hatchery fish. After a decade of no fishing, the wild fish don't seem to be making a comeback. Last week, scientists studying the Cedar reported zero steelhead observed in one of the best March holding spots on the river.

Isn't it carotene (sp?), found in shrimp that gives salmon/steelhead their red flesh? Thought I heard that someplace...