I have it on good authority that a chrome bright 5# hen steelhead was brought to hand this morning on the Snohomish system. She was reportedly carrying a full compliment of both sea lice and a fully formed adipose.

My question to the board. Is she an early winter nate, a late summer return or a hatchery fished that wasn't fin clipped (she had a perfect dorsal and nose)?

Curious as to what you all think.

sinktip

My guess is that its an early winter fish. There have been a couple winters caught up at reiter, so there's definetly been a few pods of fresh fish move in since the last rains. I have caught several summer hens in the last few weeks and they are stil in pretty good shape, but nothing like a chrome winter. Fresh summer runs are long gone... Hopefully the little nate is a remnant of the early wild winter fish! These fish should be protected just as much as the feb/mar/apr fish.

Cant wait for winter steel

Without a doubt an early winter nate. Only rare by todays standards. A decade or two ago it would have been no big deal to catch a wild winter fish this early but because we have wiped out nearly all the early wild component winter steelhead in all of our rivers they have been forgoten. Some orginizations would like you to believe they never existed.

We still have a few left out on the OP rivers some systems have more than others. Some of these fish spawn as early as the first week of December from what I have seen. But according to the powers that be Wild winter steelhead dont start spawning Untill Feb.

It is my theory that the powers that be dont want to acknoledge these fish exist or existed. Reason being there stocks are either near extinction or in a very sad state and could have a drastic affect on the current management of our rivers meaning sport fishing oportunity and comercial harvest.

To put it simply these fish have been saccrificed.

Not as familiar with those streams as I am with ones a little closer to home, but I'd sure like to hope it was an early nate. I'm sure they had a certain portion of the run that came early just as the Forks-areas streams did ...

we still have a few left, every year we get a couple. In fact we had a nice teener hen yesterday that fit the same bill ... no clip, perfect fins. I'm too lazy tonight to go out and get my camera to post a pic (the dorsal doesn't look good in the pic angle, but I checked it closely) ... but I'll have one in the next day or so

Given the size, my guess is that it is hatchery heritage, spawned in the stream. The Sno has lots of fish that look just like the brats, but have obviously not grown up in a hatchery, having adiposes and clean dorsal fins. I have always thought that those are progeny of some of the hatchery returns which have spawned in the stream.

SH-
Do remember that there is a wide variety of genetic diversity among native steelhead which creates, in most cases, many different ages classes within a river system.

The fact that this was a small fish could have nothing to do with it having 'brat' genes but just being a one-salt fish.

Many river systems carry a decent population of 1-salt fish and I've heard stories about the Skagit being full of these buggers early in the season...many years ago ofcourse.

...hopefully, this fish was indeed 100% native as our early returning natives are few and far between anymore! These fish need as much protection as we can get them...too bad the WDFW has not realized this and made it mandatory C&R on wild steelhead in December and January.

I have gotten two out of a little stream on the canal.I have fished for them for a few years now.I drift eggs throught the silvers and chums and usually get cuttys but every now and then a surprise.These fish are smaller though a big one would be five pounds.As a matter fact I am headed there when i am done here.

my wife put the first winter fish in the boat on 11/15...we where catching silvers and i never gave the fish a second look until i put it in the box, it was 12.4lbs of mint clipped fish(hen).. full skeins of eggs and all,, cought it on a flash n glo in frog water go figure??( also it was caught in the upper river?)thats 3 weeks early for me

Its a early winter run.
Just my 2 cents