No, it is absolutely 100% not time to take any lessons from the Quinaults...they have f*&ked up the genetics of the native fish in that river bad...really bad.

DA, a couple of things about the "already spawned" topic...bucks, statistically, return for a second spawning run "zero" times...yeah, it happens, but it is incredibly rare. They typically stay in the river and literally spawn themselves to death.

The hens, on the other hand, come up, drop their eggs, and head out.

The average return rate for repeat spawners is 12 or 12.5 percent...and statistically speaking, they are all hens.

The second point is the "size" issue...repeat spawners do not get any bigger on their second run. If you see a 25# buck in the river, it is 99% that it is a five year old fish that is on its first spawning run.

If a hen weighs twelve pounds when entering the river on her first spawning run, she will probably weigh about nine pounds, give or take, after using so much energy to make eggs and spawn...if she is one of the lucky 12.5% that gets to do it again, she will spend the entire 10 months or so she is back out in the salt re-gaining the three pounds she lost.

If she's any bigger on the second run, it will only be by ounces.

That being said, hens on their second spawning run can produce a lot more eggs than hens of the same size on their first spawning run...even though repeat spawners make up only 12.5% of the spawning population, they can contribute up to 25% of the entire egg production for the run.

Of course, you can't tell if the 14 pound hen you just landed is on its first or second run...so you can't tell if you are intentionally removing 3,000 or 4,200 eggs from the stock...either way, it's too many.

If you really, really need to kill a wild steelhead, for whatever reason, bonk a post-spawn buck. They've already spawned, aren't likely to spawn again, and don't taste a whole lot worse than a fresh winter run...

It'll smoke up fine!

Fish on...

Todd