Nice fresh wild spring-run half-pounders are in the American R

[Jeff C.]

AR Blue Back? Caught this in April a few years ago.

[jbird]

Hey Mark. Your picture of the chrome with sea lice on the adipose is "holy grail" material. Break that down... Chrome. Sea Lice. Adipose. Those three words are sweet by themselves. You got em all together in a photo! Well done!

[Jed Peters]

AR Blue Back? Caught this in April a few years ago.

Jeff C, your fish looks eerily similar to this one....definitely looks like the same run/type of fish.

[Jeff F]

AR Blue Back? Caught this in April a few years ago.

I don't think so, Jeffrey. That looks like those footballs we used to catch in the summer. Remember those? (see pic below)

The "blueback" in Andy's picture, again.....complete chromer, bullethead, no rainbow coloration and very little spotting. And I don't think they stick around long enough to start changing color. But who knows......

[Mark Kranhold]

Thanks Jay! I would have to agree Jeff F, the spring fish I call blue backs are always dime bright and wild with that color separation of bluish back to chrome body and full of piss and vinegar!

[winxp_man]

I think these fish might be a true HP run of the Eel strain fish..... Reason is simple. Its the same looking HP's I caught on the Van Duzen and Eel. Dark back, bright chrome sides they look like little silver bullets.

This pic is from a video I tried to shoot and couldn't get a good side shot. But it did has a dark back like in the first post.

[STEELIES/26c3]

There's a difference between the chrome smolts and the bluebacks both on the American and on the Eel. SFE, and VD rivers.
On the Eel River system there are no hatchery fish so ALL of the small trout are chromers. They may or may not be blue backs.
That fish in the photo doesn't appear to be a blueback.

In the American right now, the most likely possibilities are:

1) This year's steelhead smolt plants (10-14" chrome or close and clipped)

2) Last year's hatchery planters or naturally-spawned yearling steelhead which have yet to outmigrate (like Jeff's and Jed's beautiful but not salt-chrome fish in the photos). These fish go 18"-24"

3) Folsom or Natoma rainbow trout which have come through the spillway at Natoma. (These are the 'Folsom Footballs' and are rarely caught downriver from Sailor Bar since they originate from way upriver. They genetically are derived from the broodstock trout in the western section of Nimbus Hatchery (as most of you know... the hatchery is divided in to the mitigation section which rears salmon and steelhead and the trout plant section which rears catchable trout for planting in urban, rural and mountain lakes and streams. It should be noted that the 'Folsom Football' shape of these trout is likely not a genetic phenotype but rather an environment-induced characteristic because of the fishes' piscivorous diet of Wagasaki (pond smelt introduced to Folsom and Natoma).

4) An escapee trout that got accidentally flushed from the hatchery or from the spillway and feeling adventurous... decided to leave the vicinity and take up residence downriver so it could say, "Hi there!!!" to Mark or Andy or Jeff.

5) Blueback steelhead (entering the river as early as mid February but most prolific from March to late April). Range in size from 14"- 24" and even as large as 8 lbs. Herein lies the great mystery.... Are they remnant of the central valley steelhead? I think the reason that has been adopted as a likelihood is because of how hard these lil guys fight. I have personally caught a 16" blueback which during the grab and initial run, I had estimated to be 4-6 lbs. We assume a native, summer run steelhead (like the once endemic but now-extant American River central valley steelies) would fight in a similar fashion. I fished for several years with a man who has fished the AR since 1948 and he's told me about the fishing pre-dam and how he used to go up to Rainbow Bridge and catch (4-6#) summer steelies all day long. Those days and those fish are long gone...

I'm sure some of the POST-dam returnees managed to breed and their offspring managed to breed with each other in successive years. Unfortunately, I'm fairly certain that these same fish and their subsequent offspring ALSO interbred with the MANY and in some cases, far more prolific introduced strains (like the Washougal, Eel, Russian, Mad river fish all of which were introduced experimentally in the 1960's 1970's and 1980's).

Add to that all of the interbreeding candidate trout which have escaped from the hatchery and from Natoma and Folsom Lakes into the river, the loss of viable habitat, the increase of predators (humans included) and the southerly siphoning of our watershed over the years and you soon see how a truly pure strain of indigenous central valley steelhead is pretty impossible.

I believe that the early and larger bluebacks which come up in March and spawn account for the greatest percentage of offspring. There is obviously enough of a population such that we do in fact see a return of bluebacks each year. Sadly, I cannot help but believe that their numbers are dwindling and that the success of these later/smaller fish will be increasingly challenged by the perils of water mismanagement

I have caught many AR bluebacks over the years but not a ton of them as I tend to shift my attention to black bass and stripers at around the time one would have the best chance at catching them on the AR. I'd love to know more about them. I'm going to try and contact Weldon E. Jones and pick his brain. I'll post the results when I do.

6) A stray from the Mokelumne, Coleman, Sacramento, Feather, or other such river.

7) a downrunner Eel River winter run fish. Unlikely in such low water as most either died or are on their way to the delta to do so.

The American River is kind of like America... a huge, mixed-up melting pot, somewhat managed, somewhat mismanaged, yet each of its inhabitants trying to survive amid the chaos~

Long live us all

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Very nice fish..........

I fished this river starting in the 1960s with night crawlers on a fiberglass spinning rod I made myself with help from Edwoldt's Rod & Reel Repair on Del Paso Blvd.

I have so many fond memories of fishing with old friends, catching fish and getting skunked too.

I love this river.....

If you fished it right now as if you were trout fishing a stream you would probably catch fish.

.

[steel2theReel]

I agree that it's a melting pot.

Fisheries (mis)management has been going on for 60 years + in one guise or another and it seems like now every new administrator has their own 'plan' to save the species. What ever happened to long range planning?
I can remember when we even had a Washougal strain summer run that was in the Lower in July-August. Another planned failure. It was defunded and over 1,500 fish were slaughtered in the hatchery during one year on the 70's (as I recall in between senior moments).

The same mismanagement now has decimated the O MyKiss strain on the Yuba. Anyone notice that we now catch strays from the Feather but rarely a real steelhead of any size on the Yuba? We are selectively breeding out native stocks because of inept fish and water management.

Pretty soon we'll be conversing about the Mud Puppy run on the American instead.....

[Mark Kranhold]

[QUOTE=steel2theReel;144969]
I can remember when we even had a Washougal strain summer run that was in the Lower in July-August.

I hope and still think we may still have some Washougal strain in the American? I have caught several fish like this in July-August over the past years. Not sure what the Washougal strain looks like but these fish were all wild and feistier than hell!
Washougal??