1) S
2) S
3) S
4) W
5) S

I'm going to say all summers and here's why:

You're wearing light clothing while holding all of the bright hens, so one could assume it was warm out that day. (spring/summer/fall) Bright fish = warm day = summer run.

It looks like Micropterus101 is holding the colored wild (unclipped) bucks because the person pictured is wearing his infamous camoflauge jacket. You guys fished together just recently and any winters in the NF Lewis now wouldn't already be dark.

So there's the rationale for my guess. Hopefully I'm at least half right...

Parker -
Like Salmo G I have not noticed that the caudal peduncle being longer or shorter on summer steelhead. Could well be that is the case but here in the North Sound rivers I have not noticed it. It might be that late summer fish tend to have loss condition thus the peduncle may look longer on the skinny fish, especially when compared to a fresh winter.

Summers and winters as well as resident rainbows are just different life histories of the same species and can breed with each other. With that it could be that there are some intermediate fish - sometimes folk call them swinters or tweeners.

Like your photos indicate it is hard to judge a summer/winter fish just by a photo. Have seen ocean fresh wild winter steelhead in November/December that are months from spawning (April/May) that look virtually the same as chrome hatchery summer in April/May. The reason of course is that both are in primo condition, chrome bright, and months from spawning.

To accurately separate a summer from a winter visually requires some judgement on the condition of the fish and consideration of the time of the year. In the spring/early summer the summer fish would be a well conditioned fish, lots of internal fat, and sexually immature. A winter's condition at the same time would depend on whether it had spawned or not. Spawn out winter females often are confused with early summers. Both fish can be chrome bright (with a week or two they can return to near ocean bright condition), slender fish, with very small undeveloped eggs (thumb size). However if the fish were cleaned it would be apparent that the winter had used most of its fat reserves while the summer would have large fat deposits. The male winters would be obivous maturing or mature fish or if they are spawnouts they would be obivously thinner and often beat up (if they remain in the river for an extended after spawning they may become bright once again).

In the fall/winter period one of the most reliable clues at least in the North Puget Sound area is that the summer fish usually have a number of parasitic copepods (typically in the mouth on its roof, gills, or occassionally at the base of the pectoral fins) while the winter fish don't. For the males man of the hatchery summer fish have a lime greenish back with a big red stripe (many of the wild summer fish are colored more trout like wiht a more bluish back). The hatchery males will typcially when dark will be grayish/black with a less pronounce red stripe. In late November and December the dark fish in our rivers is often winter fish as they spawn as much as a month earlier than a summer that has been in the river for 6 or more months.

The size of the fish may not be a very good clue depending on the area the fish are from. Again in the North Puget region the smallest fish on the average are our native summer, the next the hatchery winters, then the hatchery summers and finally our wild winters. Of course in each group there is a wide range in sizes; for example have seen wild Skagit/Sauk winters vary from as little as 4# to more than 30#.

To your quiz - A fun topic and chance for all us "experts" to make fools of ourselves - thanks.

As stated above to reliably separate summers from winters more than a photo is sometimes needed. That said I would say #1 and #5 are summers, #2 and #4 are winters. #3 is an interesting looking fish in that is unusually fat for an ocean run O mykiss but if force to pick one or the other I would have to go with a winter (on the average winters tend to be slightly heavier at a given length).

Tight lines
Smalma

I wish I could remember just where I heard that little tidbit of info because if memory serves me right, it was from a reliable source.

Also a question for 'ya...how often does breeding occur between winter and summer fish?? Because of the morphological differances between the differnt strains, it would seem to me that say a wild Deer Creek summer-steelhead and a wild Upper Skykomish summer-steelhead would be much more genetically similiar then say a wild summer-steelhead from the Skykomish and its winter-run cousin from the same river.

And finally, my guess...

1) Summer...longer caudual peduncle, not too fat plus it is a clipped fish that has that May/June Skamania strain look to it.

2)This was the toughest...Unclipped Winter Fish (Cook Creek??)...

3)Another toughy...I would say Winter fishy as its girth leads to believe it is sexually mature plus it looks to have a shorter caudual peduncle. But at the same time, that does not look like the typical Chambers Creek brat.

4)Jeeeeese...this is tougher then I thought. Another unclipped fish that looks to be caught the same day as #2 except this fish's dorsal is straight and clean so it looks to be a true wild fish. I'd have to say early wild winter fish.

5) Skamania stock summer-run. No doubt about it! A chrome, long, well conditioned hatchery fish...looks like she was a fish capable of seriously kicking your ass!

Sparky -
Had another tought on the peduncle length.

It has been known for sometime that the various meristic charcteristic (counts of various body parts) of trout/salmon can be influenced by the temperature at which the eggs are incubated. The first published work that I can remember was from the mid-1920s that showed that rainbow trout eggs (domestic stock) from the same parents incubated at different temperatures resulted in a difference in the number of vertebrae in the spine - more vertebrae might result in a longer appearing peduncle. Believe the work was published by a Dr. Hubbs (first name Carl?) from either the Mid-west or East Coast. For the life of me I can't remember whether cooler water resulted in more or less vertebrae - the more than 35 years since college has been just too long.

Based on the above it may be that there may geographic differences in the number of vertebrae. Inland fish (summer fish) might have different counts than coastal fish (mostly winters). A search by some young student with a little time might be able find more details than I could dredge from my foggy mind.

Tight lines
Smalma

Okay -for a newbie - can anyone give some links which define the differences between a winter run steelhead and a summer run steelhead? or just some definitions of the two?

And the results are.....

1 = Summer
2 = Winter
3 = Winter
4 = Winter
5 = Summer

And a big thanks to all that contributed. Good, fun, and knowledgeable thread.

Bob - you'd better lock this bad-boy down and delete it ASAP!

So much for my clothing theory...

Parker,

Just out of curiousity, what months were those fish caught in.

Thanks,
LT

April 03
Nov 03
Nov 03
Nov 03
May 03