Without a doubt an early winter nate. Only rare by todays standards. A decade or two ago it would have been no big deal to catch a wild winter fish this early but because we have wiped out nearly all the early wild component winter steelhead in all of our rivers they have been forgoten. Some orginizations would like you to believe they never existed.

We still have a few left out on the OP rivers some systems have more than others. Some of these fish spawn as early as the first week of December from what I have seen. But according to the powers that be Wild winter steelhead dont start spawning Untill Feb.

It is my theory that the powers that be dont want to acknoledge these fish exist or existed. Reason being there stocks are either near extinction or in a very sad state and could have a drastic affect on the current management of our rivers meaning sport fishing oportunity and comercial harvest.

To put it simply these fish have been saccrificed.