Howdy,
After a winter season that could be rated fair, I'm trying to be optimistic. What was your smallest Steelhead this year? I get a couple Jack's each season. (Pilchuck R. every winter) This time around I hooked probabaly a dozen. The smallest wild fish was an eighteen in. Jill. On the same day, I C&R a fourteen in. hatchery buck. (I swear not a smolt) The fisheries people use Jack returns as an indicater of favorable ocean condition's. However, my partner Steve has a theory that Jack's are nature's way of patching up the crack's in a critical low number's situation. What do you think? Tell me something good.

We got one on the Nooch that was 16 inches. Fat little sucker. Had fin clip and all. Fought like a demon too. I think the little ones are just like 13 year old boys. Too horny to wait. All their older friends are doing it so why shouldn't they?

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Just because I look big, dumb, and ugly, doesn't mean I am. It means I can stomp you for calling me it!

I believe its like big jim sez the jacks are just early teens thet just cant waity to get some .remember when you were thirteen. FISH ON !!!!!!!!!!

When I was clipping fins for the D.F.W. I was told if the smolt are kept in the raceways too long ,they would residualise and become resident trout. Can't say if it's true or not, that was just what I was told. Tight lines. Jim Marquis

Jacks, at least in the case of salmon (chinook and coho), are always males, sexually mature, who return ahead of their normal year class. Sort of nature's way of assuring that there will be enough males to fertilize all of the eggs. I can remember, back in the pre-St. Helens days, catching lots of bright little eighteen-inch chinook jacks at the mouth of the Toutle; great sport and superb on the table. Among salmon there is no female equivalent and I don't think I recall ever hearing about such a thing (females that is) among steelhead. Haig-Brown wrote about catching "grilse" in the Campbell River that were apparently the equivalent of the Rogue River's half-pounder run; immature fish, male and female, running up into the river with the spawners. This same phenomenon occurs with sea-run cutthroat, sexually immature fish following spawners into the river and remaining there for a while before returning to salt water. There's also the possibility of resident rainbows, extremely sparse populations of which remain in many northwest streams. This might even be a greater likelihood in the Pilchuck which is closed to fishing except during the steelhead season. The only residualized smolts that I have run across have been in the Wenatchee, where there were some nice ones up to seventeen inches or so. I understand that even some salmon residualize in the Wenatchee and I can imagine them surveying the gantlet of dams they have to run to get to the ocean and thinking "Naaah!".

[This message has been edited by Preston Singletary (edited 04-17-2000).]

I must have have grilse then because I have landed two female salmon on the Carbon that were small enough to be jacks. Under 20 inches. The eggs were not mature, but there were eggs in both. One was a chinook, one coho. So I wonder if due to the hatchery holding too long they came in early?

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Just because I look big, dumb, and ugly, doesn't mean I am. It means I can stomp you for calling me it!

Just a couple of clarifications I can make. Salmon do have female jacks. They are called jennies, and I've seen them in the fishtrap that I used to work at. Grilse are a term I've only heard applied to the equivalent of a jack in Atlantic Salmon. Being from the south coast of Oregon, we called them half pounders, sure are a kick in the pants on light fly gear, I did catch one on the trask this year, and another on the salmon the year before. Hope this helps.

Just a note. If stealies don't go out to sea or get trapped in a body of water they become trout. It is the same fish bios don't know why one migrates and one does't. Steelhead smolt can be trapped in fresh water and go through the process of becoming an adult(immature) then don't reproduce and die. These fish are found and called trout. This will open up a topic I am sure. Fish on.

Well steelhead Jacks? Gisle is a more appropriate term. Half-pounder would be more appropriate if it indeed was sea-run and not sexually mature. Wether these were small one salt mature fish or imature fish that followed adult back it is unclear. This determining future run sizes as a representation of that age class of steelhead would be highly unlikely for a river that this occurs in a un regular basis. In Southern Oregon and Northern California it would be easier to suggest future run sizes.

As far as Jacks in Salmon; whole different ball game. For Coho; three years of age is an adult, two is a jack, and yes all male (a female would be a small two salt fish). These fish are physilogically adults too. Although the further North you go, it is more common to see fish that over winter in fresh water for up to three years, in this case you can see true "Jennies," fish that spent one year in salt and two or three in fresh and are typical jack size. As far a a acurate measurement of that age class survival as out-migrants to unceartain ocean conditions, this is a very good indicator of the next years adult return will be.
Chinook jacks are also two years of age, one salt and sexually mature adults, however age's three to six are common, but fish can reach up to nine-ten years of age. however rare. Most stocks have commonly age four or five as normal and some stocks have a higher percentage of age six fish such as Tillamook Bay Rivers. Rivers Inlet and the Kenai River are in there own catagory with fish that commonly reach age six through eight. Jack would represent a good idea of ocean survival also just like Coho, although you can commonly follow this strong age class year-by-year(strong showing of three's the next year and ect.)
As far a Chum and Sockeye one salt fish are very rare, first returning adults are age three. Pink (all mature at age two, one salt fish)
It should be reconized that jacks are typical representation of the total run size on average, although environmental factors such as water temperature adn food availability can sque these averages hence, making it difficult to predict the age classes survival when they mysteriously appear or don't appear.