There is a tiny stream on the Oregon Coast called Cape Creek that is open for steelhead. Years ago a freind and I were fishing the first pool above tidewater the first week of December. He catches a 6 pound hen, chrome bright, not a mark on her, and still with sea lice, and bonks it. When he cut it open it was spawned out There are no summer runs in this crick and probably only about a mile of spawnable water, so that fish must have come in ripe and let go immediately, and for that to happen that early in the season - well, we never expected it for sure.

I release spawnouts, hatchery or not, and actually release any steelhead that is a bit dark as I surely don't need to smoke dark fish when my freezer is still plugged with all the chrome salmon I smoked up August through October. The one thing that gives away a spawned out hen, no matter how bright, is that the ovipositor is extruded. You can see that when they lay over on their sides after being played out.

Lotsa early spawnouts this year, with all the early rain and correspondingly early return. Last couple I got down in my little Southwest corner of Washington were spawnouts. Think I'll go blackmouth fishing tomorrow