Old Man -
Glad to hear you been getting out and about in the mountains. Many of us get so focused on the steelhead portion of the steelhead/rainbow populations that we miss the beauty and diversity of steelheads' "little brothers", both the fish and their habitats.

Deer Falls on the North Fork Skykomish is about 4 miles upstream of Garland; about 1/4 mile upstream of the mouth of Golblin.

Todd -
As stated earlier in this tread it appears that the resident rainbows and steelhead have a similar relationship here on this side of the Pacific. This is not unique to "mykiss"; we see exactly the same things with our cutthroat and Dolly Varden/bull trout. We humans tend to want to put things in nice neat boxes; our fish seem to resist this at every opportunity. That is some of what makes them so interesting.

The fish on the Sauk may well have been a resident rainbow. I catch several every year in the Sauk/Skagit. Typically the residents reach maturity at about 14 inches (age 4), so your 16 inch would be spawning for its second time this spring, likely in May. Remember based on the above the fish is the same whether we call it a steelhead or resident. Based on my experience the probability is a fish that size (especially the females) have not been to sea. Without scales samples it would be difficult to tell with certainity. Other possibilities (all rare) include: 1) A "Jill or Jenny"; a sexual mature female that returned a year early; or 2) perhaps smolted at an older age (3 or 4 years, it is even possible that it may have spawned prior to smolting and returned after only 1 summer at sea; or 3) A "half pounder"; a fish that returned after the first summer of rearing to over-winter in freshwater as a sexually immature fish. While all these other options are rare they do happen; again part of the diversity of the species.

The chrome color of the fish may indicate that it was to the ocean. But could just as well be that it is smolting but most likley is that due to the recent colored or turbid conditions of the Sauk it had turned silver. Remember that fish can adjust their colors at more or less their will. During the summer run period the trout often are silver or pale in color and with the return of clear water in late summer or fall their coloration returns to what we would consider to be normal.

Tight lines
Smalma