As I mentioned in another thread to Goharley a few days back, we got a chance to catch a 40" x 20" buck a couple of times over last week.

While C&R certainly helps put a few more fish on the beds ... here's another example of it's importance to sports anglers by allowing two anglers in three days to catch the same trophy-class fish

The first day, he was caught in some swirly water right on the edge of a steep drop off in about 10 feet of water under extemely low water. He marched upstream on us for a bit trying to leave the hole on the upstream end before we finally got him turned to slug it out in the deep water of the hole.

The next day, I was forced to head elsewhere due to logistical probs but we returned the follwing day and started our day in the very hole we got him in two days previous.

It took just one well-placed cast right on the drop to make the bobber go under in the exact same spot. A short run downstream and the fish made a great endo showing himself and I hinted then that I thought it might be the very same fish.

He was actually quite a bit more of a tussle the second time around and this time he promptly left the bottom end of the hole doing about Mach 9 ... we gave chase and finally caught up to him a few hundred yards down. As he finally got him up to the boat, I could see the yucky spot on his tail was exactly the same as what we'd seen two days earlier to confirm he was the same fish!

A neat success story of C&R to allow two anglers to enjoy the same hefty fish a couple of times over ... we nicknamed him "sucker"

Day one:



Day three:

Man, I gotta work on my posing. I look like I'm constipated. Maybe after I catch a few more like that I'll look more natural.

That really is cool to have a fish there to catch more than once. Truly magnificent creatures.

An interesting "green-color" to the fish.

Very much the norm of the bigger bucks in these streams as they start to show spawning colors ... Hoh fish especially

Ok, that's funny.

Both guys have that "I Feared This Fish" look to them! I don't think Loomis will be buying up these photos for their advertising!

Either that, or both guys have that "Oh [Bleeeeep!], look at that extremely large grizzly bear behind Bob" look to them!

How awsome is that...Definetly the same fish! Thats why Steelhead are a game fish, not food fish. THey can be enjoyed numerous times, not just once on the grill.

Good pics

Bank walker

So can salmon!
Cowlitzfisherman

He definitly had the "biter" gene in him.

Hopefully his babies will to.

Quick question if that fish makes it back out to the ocean will he come back next year or would you think this is his last year spawning?

rarely do bucks come back again ... kinda the typical male, spawn until you die

Typcially, your largest fish are also only first-time spawners. Hens that go back rarely come back much bigger than their first run ... it's simply a matter of regaining lost weight due to the spawning process for them.

I do like those dumb genes though

Another point in that ... other discussions have mentioned how "non-biting" some strains of fish have become, espeiclaly hatchery fish in a small closed population ... gotta keep those biting genes going too!

Wow I thought they come back year after year.
So a 30lb steelhead could have been born the same season as a 12lb fish? Does size have more to do with there genes or how much they eat? What percentage of bucks are 1 time spawners?

Thanks for the info.

minibear,

Virtually no bucks are repeat spawners...but a few years ago a broodstock buck in Oregon was bonked, and scale samples showed that it had already spawned twice before, I believe.

That fish was somewhere in the neighborhood of 27#.

About 12-15% of hens spawn again...and Bob was right about size, they don't get much bigger, if at all. They do, however, produce many more eggs in subsequent visits.

Even though repeat spawners generally are around 12% of the run, they account for more like 25% of the total eggs deposited.

Very good reason to release all wild fish...the ten pound hen you just landed may have twice as many eggs in it as a different ten pound hen!

Really big fish are a function of two things; genetics, which makes some fish just bigger, and age. While a real pig may be on its first spawning run, it may have spent two years in the river, and three more in salt, and be verging on six years old during its first run.

Conversely, a six pounder may only be two years old on its first run.

BTW, the reason why almost no bucks return again is that they hang out the entire spawning season, mating as many times as possible. They're just too beat up and exhausted...while hens drop their eggs and head on back down.

Fish on...

Todd.

Yes, it's possible that a 30 lb. buck my be the brother of a 12lb. hen that is making a second trip up the river.

Given that less than 10% of our fish are repeats ... I would venture a guess that probably about 99% of the boys are 1st timers. Smalma may be able to confirm / deny this number.

Food certainly plays a role, but it's the number of years in fresh / salt / spawning runs that is dicated by genetics that plays the biggest role in how big the fish is.

One of the very reasons IMO that I don't believe we can manage them like salmon ... life history possibilities are all over the map!

Thanks Todd for the simultaneous post ... had I known, I wouldn't have bothered typing

Bob,

What else are you going to do on a day like today? It looks like you'll have plenty of time to tie leaders...

Todd.

I kind of got in the habit a few years ago, when I was reading scales for a living, of collecting scales from fish I released and aging them. I did catch one buck, a 17 pounder, that was on his second run. He was real suspicious looking - was colored up but overlain with chrome edged scales. From the degraded condition of the scale margin I would say he gained no weight at all in saltwater - might have even lost some - but was in excellent condition for all that and fought like a devil. Wish I had a pic but that was in the pre-digital days.

Also, when I was port sampling in the 70s, I got to see a huge steelhead in spawned out condition that was brought in by a troller - caught him in the ocean out of Neah Bay. Nitwit killed him and tried to sell him as a king (...but the tail has spots...). That one was over 25 I believe and looked to be in good shape. So some of those big bucks survive.

Not uncommon to see steelhead caught more than once. Over the years when tagging fish or taking scale samples have caught the same fish not only twice in one day but on three occassions caught the same fish on consective casts. Not sure whether those fish were super biters or just plain dumb! Seem to recall that one tagged fish was caught 8 times in a 3 month period.

Bob and Todd are correct in that most repeat spawners are females. The males linger near spawning areas (likely mother natures way of insuring that any late spawning females will have males to mate with her). Have seen winter males (spawn-out) in the river as late as the end of October. However males can survive a spawn multiple times. The males are probably less than half as likely to survive as the females though that ratio varies considerably year to year with higher survival rates happening when there are higher river flows during and after the spawning season.

The life history of the a fish can make a big difference in the size of the fish. Remember in 1983 the Sauk broodstock program had 3 fish that were 7 years old (very rare animals). One male was a 2.4+ (2 year smolt and returning to spawn for the first time after 5 summers of ocean rearing). He was 43.5" and weighted 31.5#. Another male was a 3.2+s+ (a 3 year smolt, 3 summers of ocean rearing before returning to spawn and returning for the second time). He weighted 16.5#. The third fish was a female whose age was 2.2+s+s+ (2 year smolt who returned the first time after 3 summers of ocean rearing and was on her third spawning trip). She weighted just over 20#. Quite a sizxe range for fish of the same age.

I have noticed over the years that those males with what I call alligator heads are generally repeat spawners. By an alligator head I mean those with a head than looks larger then normal (a head of a 18#er on a 14# fish for example). They also tend to have larger jaws. I bet Bob knows exactly the kind of fish I'm talking about.

Tight lines
Smalma

Smalma ... Certainly many are caught numerous times, this was kinda unique for me that the exact same cast produced the exact same fish a couple of days apart

Do you think the Dept. would have a probelm with a program to tag some caught fish (spaghetti tags) to try to keep track of how many times some are caught??

I'd be willing to pay for my gun & tags .. it might be interesting to see how often and track the movement pattern of some of them ...

Bob -
I'm sure that there would be concerns with private individuals tagging fish on their own. A number of problems developed with unauthorized tagging of bass several years ago. Having tagged being caught always result in a number of calls to the local bios. But more important are potential impacts to the fish; as has been discussed here a number of times with the fish handling skills of many of our anglers the fish don't need the additional abuse from additional mis-handling.

That said volunteers have been used in some tagging studies. Other agencies and consultant groups have also tagged fish for a variety of reasons.

If such an effort were to go forward it would need to be coordinated with local agency folks with some sort of study plan. The plan would likely need goals, objectives, what the training of those tagging the fish would be, who will be doing the work, how the data will be collected and shared etc. A clear statement of what are the likely gains and costs ($$ and to the fish) would also be helpful in assessing the value of such an effort.

Tight lines
Smalma

Bob, as soon as I'm a better steelheader you'll be gettin a call from me

I'd like a fish like that...

I guess the comment that begs to be stated is how much opportunity is spread around by a released fish, plus the great potential to seed it genes. Seems to me pretty unselfish to release a nice wild fish to provide another angler an opportunity.

Interestin tidbit from Trey Combs' book,

Steelhead Fly Fishing and Flies:

(Paraphrased)
Peninsula's largest winter runs are males on their first and final spawning run. Life history compositions of those studied indicate 2/3, 2/4, 3/3, and 3/4.

Three years in the river, four years in the salt. Any question about how rare and valuable a creature these fish are should truly be erased.


GS

So the fish stayed in the river ~ 3 years before going back! Is that normal?

Just read something that I had read and forgot It says they rear for one to four years depending on the productivity of the stream. In WA most wild steelhead rear for 2 years. They wait in the eddies behind large rocks, allowing the river to bring them food in the form of insects, salmon eggs, and small fish.

I guess we should be able to figure out behind which rock they caught this fish

First number refers to the years in initial freshwater (smolt years) prior to migrating to salt.

And that's part of where genetics comes into play. The Skeena watershed, renowned for large steelhead sees a large percentage of the fish spending three years in the fresh before heading out.

Salt years can do it too, and just for steelhead. The reason Kenai kings can get so large is that they usually spend one more year at sea than most chinook strains

Bob is right in that the fish from the Skeena system are mostly 3 year smolts (freshwater). The length of time that steelhead smolts spend in freshwater is largely a function of the growing conditions in the freshwater environment. For steelhead to successfully make the transition from freshwater to salt water they need to reach a certain size threshold (generally 6 or 7 inches). Consequencely as one moves North from California to Alaska older smolts are found.

The growing conditions in the southern part of steelhead's range allow more fish to reach that size after only a year in freshwater, in the mid-portion of their range (Washington) two year smolts dominate (some one year and 3 year smolts) and further North 3 year smolts become the common age of smolting.

In regard to chinook those larger fish are indeed older fish (longer marine feeding). Large chinook (thus in excess of 50#) were much commoner in Washington waters 50 or more years ago. Those older fish have become much rarer in our chinook population primarily due to the continuous fishing on the immature fish on their feeding grounds. The result is our chinook populations have become on the average young at maturity thus smaller.

Tight lines
Smalma

Somewhere, I remember reading that the reason Skeena fish are,
on average, larger in size is due to their growing faster in the
salt water environment than their more southern cousins
in Washington or Oregon.

I wonder if it is true that a 3-salt Skeena fish tends to be larger
than a 3-salt fish from a river in Washington?

If so... Is the greater growth due to genetic growth factors or
do the Skeena grow faster due to migration and feeding habits?

Anyone... ???

You gotta love the look in both of those guys eyes. It's like they just got shot at in a drive by shooting and narrowly escaped with their lives. That's what its all about. Sheer physical and mental exhaustion. Congrats Boys.

Many years ago, there was a dark buck steelie in the Jones Hole of the Betsie. Over the course of a week, that fish was hooked well over a dozen times. Sometimes he bit, sometimes he was fouled. He kicked everyones rump. He was fondly named IGOR by those of us fishing that hole. My buddy lost him when he sawed him off in some wood on a sweeeper. At the end of our trip, a guy landed him. This fish had hooks in its jaw, and hanging off a few fins. He looked like a frickin Christmas tree with fins. He ended up being about 18 pouinds. The guy that finally landed him, let him go to a standing ovation from about 10 of us that fished that run for the week.

I'm sure IGOR died after that springs spawning run, but I can still picture that mean old b*sta*d kicking everyones a**. One of which happened to be mine. Hopefully, one of his kids weill head up to the Jones Hole this spring. If so, I'll be ready.

What a great thread you guys! It's not every day that everyone can learn so much about the fish we love to pursue. Aggressive wild Salmonids are such a treasure that we should all respect. My own experience with such a fish came several years ago on the mighty Kenai. We were bouncing the middle stretch when my rod was almost ripped out of my hands. After a 15 minute battle a chrome King of forty pounds was along side the boat. We reached over to release him and noticed a Sockeye fly stuck in his jaw, next to that was a huge Kwickfish and next to that was my bobber!! That's what I call an aggressive fish.

Tight lines all(well, when the flooding stops!)

I agree thanks for the info!

This thread was a real learning experience. Very good info. Thanks

A friend & I probably caught the same big fish about 2 weeks apart in the same drift. I never knew how much it weighed but think it was my 1st 20 pounder at about 39". The big buck had a cool greenish tint with a red stripe to it & was a little darker when he caught it. That was a sweet day as I caught another slab that day too. I'll try to post the pix of those brutes soon.

Here is a story about a fish caught more than once.
Back in Minnesota, over 30 years ago, I was fishing a tributary to Lake Superior and had landed a nice hen of about 5 lbs or so. I was just about to release it, when another fisherman approached me, and asked if he could have the fish, as he wanted the eggs. I explained that if I gave him the fish, I then would have to count it in my limit, and then wouldn’t be able to continue to fish any longer. He accepted that, and noticed that I had on of the new Fenwick rods that came out recently, and asked if he could make a few drifts with it. I gave him the rod, and wandered off to a call of nature, and immediately heard a whoop and a holler. Upon returning to the fellow with my rod, here he had just landed the fish that I had returned only minutes before. It was recognizable by a lamprey scar in a certain spot on the body. He made the comment; “It’s more fun to catch it, than to have it given to me”. He kept the fish, for the eggs, of course.
Catarafter

Very interesting topic! I like to think of those big males that get caught again and again as being the most territorial. Protecting their spot as it were.
I dont think of them as dumb. Not after having survived for that long.
Seeing fish that large does send shivers down my spine.

Plunk ... sorry, I missed you question. To the best of my knowledge, early salt growth rate is very dependant upon size of the smolt at salt entry. Bigger smolts usually mean bigger adults within the same life cycle ...

Perhaps Smalma or ??? can verify / shoot down this info that I have ...

Thanks for the reply Bob.

I've had a facination for those remarkable Skeena fish since the late 50's and early 60's when Gordy Frear, a friend who sometimes fished up there, told stories of their average size and also of the number of huge ones.

Most of my knowledge of these fish comes from the writing of Trey Combs in his books from the early 70's and although these books are quite informative it would seem that a much better understanding of these fish might be available today.

In keeping with the theme of this thread I'll note that nearly every angler on that river system released all of their steelhead voluntarily even before the limit was reduced to one fish kept.

out of all the salmonids, why do the four pacific salmon die after spawning, but the alantic salmon return to sea after spawning? are they more like a steelie than a traditional salmon, ive seen pics and they seem a bit more like the coloring of a brown trout/steelie mix...