according to the game pamphlet, the retaining of a steelhead is hatchery only. i personally have not seen a finclipped steelhead in years. there seems to be plenty of steelhead being caught on the wind this spring. so brewer has always thought the wind river was part of the skamania planting project. well because the wind has no steelhead hatchery of it's own. so i called the skamania hatch today to ask some ????s about the hatchery steelhead program. well according to skamania they have never planted any steelhead in the wind. so here lies the problem with game pamphlet.... if it's a true native fish population only on the wind, why isn't a no steelhead retention rule?

now the hatch guy had no clue about the wind and who was planting it, if it is at all. does anyone know if the wind actually recieves any steelhead smolt planting? if so, where are the smolts coming from?

another mystery going on here is that the steelhead that are being caught are NOT summer steelhead. the hens have single eggs, the males are red striped winter fish. according to the bonnidam guys they claim there is not a winter run above the bonni. ?????s

brewer guesses then, that this also falls under the salmon don't travel the dam at night also.

anyone have answers to any of this?

Ever consider the rule is there for stray clipped steelhead?

Might not be planted at all, but if a clipped stray spring and/or summer run comes along, no sense in having to let it go......

Just a thought.

it's a thought parker.

Yes.








Yes, it is...

Brewer,

According to what I've read, every Steelhead east of the Cascades is considered a Summer fish regardless to time of year caught.
That might be what the Bonni guy was refering to.

The Big White Salmon gets an average of 24000 hatchery winter steelhead smolt a year. So there "are" winter steelhead planted above the dam, and don't forget the Hood River it gets some as well.......

As far as summer fish, the Wind River doesn't get a hatchery plant but get's plenty of strays during the warm water times of the Columbia in late June and July and August being the prime time. They pull in the Wind, Big White Salmon and Little White Salmon and Klickitat to cool off........

Years ago this was a well kept secret and some amazing fishing in the tidewater areas of those lower rivers.....

Keith

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

these steelhead are being caught above shepfalls. so i'm certain thier not strays. i can understand hatch fish in the trib mouths. i'm referring to well within the trib.

there are quite a few rivers in the regs which receive no plant(at least officially) that allow for hatchery steelhead retention. however most of them are also catch and release for everything else, so my logic says that WDFW just doesn't want any hatchery fish in those places, should you come across any.

the really weird ones are a couple of nisqually tributaries, though there are no plans in that system that i know of.

Why? A stray can navigate the fish ladder at the falls just as easily as a wild fish or planted hatchery fish. Years ago, I landed a sphagetti-tagged summer run on the upper Wynoochee.....turns out it was a stray from the Columbia River system!

open that mind up a little brewer...sounds like they are most likely strays

summerun sthd stray all over the place. Here on the Quinault river we have a run of sd ad clipped summeruns and we don't raise any. they run all the way to the lake thru the summer and are very fun to catch.............

I've caught clipped hatchery summer runs in the Wind Canyon during the late 90's. Also done very well at the mouth trolling for steelhead "dip ins" in August plus URB's. I know of a small nearby creek that gets winter runs back to it also.

Exactly.......... I've caught spaghetti tagged kalama summer runs in both the NF and EF of the Lewis....... They bounce all over the place.....

I've also landed a sockeye in the Lewis seen summer chums in the Lewis and witnessed 2 pinks that were landed in the Lewis last year............. Wierd stuff going on out there!

Keith

Here you go.

http://wdfw.wa.gov/fish/harvest/harvest.htm

As previously mentioned, 97 was the last stocking.

A mixture of strays, as well as returning wild fish from their hatchery/wild origins.

Mf

Trout stockings

http://wdfw.wa.gov/fish/plants/weekly/

Mf

in all of my years of fishing the wind, I have caught numbers of hatchery steelhead both above and below shepard falls. Most were probably strays but who cares, there is always summers in that river from april thru october.

Peace
Fly

the reason i brought this all up is because it seemed a hot topic on the wind river. lots of guys feeling that thier unclipped hatch fish. i know of 3 last week kept by one guy. i'm trying to figure it all out. most of my thoughts were those that were asked by others. thanks for the input by those who have a clue.

The Wind had a nice run of truly wild summer steelhead for many years, until the idiots at wfdf decided to start planting summer brats and they pretty much cleaned them out. Once they figured out they might be competing with one another, they quit planting them. Of course by then the wild fish were just about gone.

Brewer,

That guy who kept 3 unclipped steelhead from the Wind last week kept 3 ESA listed steelhead. He's making a strong case for closing the Wind to sportfishing.

Sg