Noob on the American

[Mike R]

Keep trying out there.

If you were catching small rainbows, they were most likely steelhead smolt. 9-10 inches is about right for an age 2+ smolt this time of year. Were they hatchery (adipose fin-clipped) or wild (no fin clip)?

Mike

[jlmelend]

FYI - All but one smolt I caught this past month have been wild on the A (Lower Sunrise to Paradise Beach).

I'm hoping this means a resurgence in wild chrome?

[robdog]

I don't think they're hard to catch, they're just in so few numbers it may seem they're hard to catch... big differnce.
If you want my definition of a difficult river to fish, it's the Pit! Urg! I could draft a laundry list of things I dislike about that river.

Again, I have more success on smaller streams. I find there is a lot of water in the American. You have to be careful of the flows. Then you have to find the fish. Just me, maybe.

[ninepoundjammer]

Not the greatest pic, have to start turning off my flash for these:



I sure remember these fish having pretty distinct red lateral lines in natural light, and the spots sure look like a rainbow to me. Then again the tail does sort of look forked in that pic, but it doesn't look anything like the pics of chinook smolt I've seen on the web.

Hard to tell for sure from the pics, but I'm pretty sure these were wild fish.

I was under the impression that steelhead smolt would be a little smaller, max 8" by the time they started heading downstream. But, the sum total of my steelhead knowledge has been developed using google over the last couple of weeks, so if somebody tells me these are steelhead smolt I won't argue.

I didn't think the AR had stocked rainbows until I read this:

http://www.flyfisherman.com/midwest/...an/index5.html

One last question. Are hatchery trout clipped just like hatchery salmon and steelhead? I don't fish stocked trout water very often.

Finally, if you need a little motivation to get out and fish, here's a pic from the AR last Saturday:

[SHigSpeed]

Yup, wild rainbow/smolt.

Done and done.

BTW, they only clip steelhead adiposes (adipi?). Planter trout aren't modified.

_SHig

[Dabalone]

From my understanding steelhead and rainbow trout are the same fish, no difference in the scientific name for them its the same. They are all rainbow trout until they migrate to the ocean and then are called steelhead upon returning to the rivers. So the question I would have is do all rainbow trout in the river system migrate to the ocean, or is there a resident rainbow population which stay in the rivers. If so how would you tell if you are planting steelhead since it depends on the fish migrating to the ocean first before becoming one?

[ninepoundjammer]

My understanding is that rainbow trout and steelhead are the same species, but that there's some genetic basis to whether they migrate or not. In other words, if your parents were migrating steelies, then you'll try to do the same. If your parents were stream resident, then you'll do likewise. So, there would be a distinction whether resident rainbows or steelhead were being stocked (or both) based on the breeding stock used by the hatchery.

[Mike R]

Look up Shapalov and Taft (1954) and you shall learn all you want about steelhead life history.

Mike