A nice winter steelhead hen caught and released on Oregon's Sandy River. Photo by Dave Kilhefner.

From Washington's Olympic Peninsula to the remote tributaries of the Snake River, winter steelhead anglers have plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the upcoming season. Improved ocean conditions combined with generous releases of hatchery steelhead smolts three to four years ago have many expecting the 2009-2010 season in the Pacific Northwest to be one to remember.

"I'm excited," said veteran Washington guide Scott Weedman, who owns Three Rivers Marine and Tackle in Woodinville. "The ocean conditions have turned around and we are seeing some good returns, and I think we are going to see some really good returns this winter."

Todd Confir, an Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist in Gold Beach, shares Weedman's optimism.

"On the Rogue River, we saw a pretty good bump in half-pounders," Confir said, referring to young steelhead that return early and often help predict abundance of larger two- and three-salt steelhead the following year. "That was a result in better ocean conditions. I would expect to see numbers improve for the 2009-2010 season."

Guides and anglers throughout the Northwest are talking about the prospects for good steelhead fishing this winter. Many point to the huge coho salmon run in the Columbia River. Steelhead, like coho, spend the first year of their life in fresh water before migrating to the ocean. The healthy offshore food supply that is fueling the coho bumper crop is also expected to result in robust steelhead runs in many rivers this winter.

"Three and four years ago, there was good escapement," longtime Oregon guide Val Perry of Seaside said of spawning steelhead on the fabled North Coast rivers, such as the Wilson, Nehalem and Nestucca. "We should see good numbers of hatchery and native steelhead this season."

PUGET SOUND RIVERS
The heavily stocked rivers that flow into Puget Sound often produce some of Washington's highest steelhead catch rates. Aside from abundant hatchery steelhead, rivers such as the Skykomish, Snoqualmie ad Skagit also produce some of the biggest wild steelhead in the Northwest, with fish topping 20 pounds reported each winter.

"Traditionally, Christmas is going to be peak time for hatchery steelhead on all three rivers," Weedman said.

The Skykomish River is one of Washington's best all-around steelhead rivers. It has plenty of bank access, is a favorite of jet-boaters, and is also a prefect river for drift-boaters.

Reiter Ponds on the Skykomish is perhaps the best bank-fishing spot in all of northern Washington for winter steelhead. Catch rates can be phenomenal, thanks to the 185,000 smolts that are released there each year. Weedman suggests fishing the Sky in December for hatchery fish and if open, in February and March for the trophy native fish.

The Snoqualmie River, often overlooked by Puget Sound steelheaders, gets 160,000 smolts each year, which fuels the excellent hatchery season there.

Other Snohomish system hotspots include the mouths of the Sultan and Wallace rivers, which also receive hatchery steelhead.

The Skagit River, one of Washington's most heavily stocked systems, has been a sleeper the past few years, in part because of its limited bank access.

"The last couple of years that's been a really untapped fishery," Weedman said. "It gets a huge hatchery plant."