Brewer,

The Wind used to receive plants of Skamania summer run smolts until around the late 1980s. Like Stlhdr1 said, hatchery strays from other systems dip in, and that likely explains why you can retain an ad clipped steelhead. In the 1970s there was a small run of winter steelhead in the Wind, like the Hood River has. I don't know if many are left today. There probably were no wild winter steelhead in the Wind before the ladder at Shipperd's Falls was constructed. Winter steelhead most likely wouldn't make it over the falls.

The kelts you observe in the Wind right now could be either summer or winter run fish that have spawned and are dropping back into the Columbia. The spawn timing window in a river like the Wind is probably pretty narrow, and both wild winter and summer steelhead would be spawning at about the same time. You probably already know that hatchery winter steelhead spawn much earlier than both hatchery and wild summer steelhead. It can get confusing at times.

Sg