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After the female steelhead selects her spawning site she prepares the area by turning on her side and "fanning" the area. The hydraulic pressure from her tail fanning and the stream current causes the rocks roll downstream (the fish does not actually dig with her tail). This results in a pit that typically is 6 to 10 inches deep. Once a pit is formed the actually spawning takes place. The female positions herself over the pit with a male along side. She will squirt out several hundred eggs which the males fertilizes. The female will then move just upstream to construct another pit and in the process bury the first batch of eggs. After the female drops the eggs into the pit they will tumble down into the spaces in the gravel below - this results in the eggs being buried 6 to 14 inches below the stream bed. The process is repeated a number of times until all her eggs have been placed in the gravel. Our wild steelhead typcially have 5 to 6,000 eggs.

The Dolly Varden/bull trout are fall spawners that typcally spawn between mid-September to mid-November in Western Washington; a little earlier on the east side of the Cascades. They spawning in the upper reaches of most watersheds in water that is colder than that used by most salmon.

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