I know that steelhead are referred to as 1 salt, two salt, etc to determine how old they are. However, I've heard conflicting reports on what "salt" stands for. One person told me that a 2 salt fish is a fish that is in the saltwater for 2 years. A 3 salt is one that remains for 3 years, etc. Another guy told me that a 2 salt means that the fish has gone out to saltwater twice and that a 3 salt means it's been out to saltwater 3 times, etc. Which one is correct?

the number of "salts" refers to the number of growing periods (summers) that the fish has spend at sea from smolt (young fish going to sea) to returning as a maturing adult. A "2 salt" is a fish that has spend 2 summers at sea. To figure the total age add the number of "salts" to the age of the smolt.

Tight lines
Smalma

Smalma is right ... then you can complicate matters after that when you figure in the repeat spawners you've mentioned. Lots of variable life histories for steelhead, personally I believe that is one problem that makes their management more difficult than salmon who are considered to be a semalparous fish ... meaning they only spawn at the end of their life span.

how can you tell if the fish has been in the salt for three yrs or has come back to spawn a second time?

Scale samples. They can actually be very fascinating...for a good introduction to the use of scale samples and various age compositions of steelhead check out The Steelhead Trout, Steelhead Flyfishing, both by Trey Combs and Steelhead Water by Bob Arnold.

In general...the rings on the scale will be very close together or even show an area where the scale shrunk as steelies dont 'feed' in the freshwater and thus do not grow.

That could be very interesting.I sometimes find dead steelhead in the canyons right after the river general season opens.Some of them are quite big!!!I will know more about them now!I would not want to make a scale sample part of c/r though!