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.