Photo by Dave Kilhefner

By Doug Rose

There are a number of ways that an outdoorsman in the Pacific Northwest can contribute to the culinary festivities of the holiday season. A Christmas goose is the focus of many waterfowlers, while big-game hunters delight guests with saddle of venison and elk roasts. Crabs and oysters, blackmouth salmon and smoked sturgeon, grouse and quail - they all enhance a holiday feast. And while steelhead may not enjoy nationwide renown as holiday fare, largely because their natural range is limited to Pacific coastal states, they are also a valued component of many sportsmen and women's Christmas feasts.

Steelhead meat is slightly drier than salmon meat, but its succulent pink flesh is much more flavorful than your average insect-eating trout. Best of all, steelhead shine in a variety of preparations.

It is excellent fresh, either served as steaks the traditional way, or as filets that can be baked or saut仔d. Some anglers like to smoke their steelhead, especially at Christmas, and feature it as a sideboard delicacy, and I have hosted more than one party where a 10-plus-pound winter fish was the centerpiece.

Although it is far from traditional, perhaps my most popular steelhead feast occurred when I baked a whole fish, surrounded with olives, mushrooms, canned tomatoes and spinach. When the meal ended, a few tablespoons of sauce and the backbone were the only items at the bottom of the roaster.

The beleaguered status of wild steelhead in the Pacific Northwest is well known, of course, and only a handful of anglers still kill wild fish for the table. However, hatchery runs occur on nearly every Washington and Oregon stream with access to tidewater, and they provide ample opportunity for anglers who want a holiday steelhead. In fact, the original hatchery stocks released into most coastal rivers - the Chamber Creek fish in Washington and Alsea stock in Oregon - were selected because of their tendency to return from the ocean during early winter. As a result, most hatchery winter steelhead runs peak in the weeks right before the holidays. This gives anglers an excellent chance to beach a tasty winter fish just in time for their Christmas dinner.

Of course, the odds of hooking a hatchery steelhead in December vary widely from stream to stream. Most smaller rivers receive only a figurative handful of steelhead smolts. The fish in these rivers tend to be caught by locals, who enjoy intimate knowledge of the stream's holding water, and who can be on the water when rain pulls in a fresh pulse of fish. On the other hand, an angler's odds increase significantly when they focus on large rivers with heavy plants of winter steelhead. The returns to the major rivers tend to be more stable over time than smaller rivers, and the productive areas are also usually more easily identifiable and well known.

2 BASIC WINTER STEELHEAD RIGS Anglers have dramatically expanded the methods used to pursue winter steelhead over the last dozen years. While all of those methods take fish under certain conditions, drift fishing and casting spoons remain enduringly productive for shore-bound anglers and beginners. Drift gear and spoons are fairly cheap, and an angler who becomes accomplished with both techniques will be able to take steelhead in virtually any situation. DRIFT FISHING Among bank anglers, drift fishing has accounted for more winter steelhead than all other presentations combined. The basic strategy is that you want your terminal rig to swing downstream slightly slower than the current and just above the bottom. Some anglers favor roe on the end of their leaders, while others like sand shrimp or tufts of yarn. The trick is to adjust your weight (usually lead), which is affixed 12 to 18 inches above the hook. It should be heavy enough to pull your rig down quickly to the fish’s eye level but not so heavy that it is constantly snagging bottom. Slinkys and cloth-coated lead weights greatly reduce snagging. Corkies, Cheaters and Spin-n-Glos are popular bobbers for keeping bait off the bottom. The take of a winter steelhead to drift gear can be so subtle that many beginning anglers have a hard time detecting it. CASTING SPOONS Beginners can usually connect with fish more easily with spoons retrieved across the grain of the current. Spoons seem to appeal to the most aggressive steelhead, especially larger bucks. The problem is not in detecting a strike but in hanging onto the rod. Little Cleo and Wonder Lure type spoons sink quickly in pocket water and slots. Flatter, thinner spoons like the Steeleye are suited for shallow tail-outs and flats. ― Doug Rose

Over the years, no major river systems have more dependably yielded hatchery steelhead than Oregon's Umpqua, Tillamook Bay and Willamette River tributaries. North of the Columbia River, Puget Sound's Snohomish River system, the Olympic Peninsula's Bogachiel River and the mighty Cowlitz have been the best hatchery destinations.

If you are determined to eat winter steelhead this Christmas, these half-dozen rivers will be your best bets.

The Big K Guest Ranch, near Elkton on the lower portion of the North Umpqua, is an institution on the river and offers traveling anglers accommodations, a restaurant and guided fishing trips. All trips are conducted in drift boats, and anglers have the option of using spin or fly tackle. The winter steelhead season on the Big K runs from December into April.

"We fish the Wilson and Trask and Kilchis," says Toy McMahaon of the Guide Shop, a full-service fishing operation on the Wilson River. "The steelhead usually show up in early November on the Wilson, but it depends a lot on the rain." McMahaon says that a dry early winter can keep the fish in the ocean, while heavy storms will knock the rivers out. As with most winter steelhead rivers, the hatchery fish in the Tillamook rivers run in the 5- to 14-pound range, but there is a potential for larger, wild fish. "We've seen 25-pounders in the Wilson," McMahon said.