THE OREGON SPORTSMAN 28 
THE STEELHEAD TROUT 
By W. M. Ketr1, in Outdoor Life 
The better I become acquainted with the steelhead trout the 
more I wonder why this splendid North American game fish has been 
so sadly neglected and kept in the background. Pick up almost any 
copy of a sportman’s magazine and you will find numerous articles, 
letters or photographs regarding the brook, brown, lake or the rain- 
bow trout, or stories telling of trips after salmon, muscallonge, pike, 
pickerel or black bass; but not on an average of once a year do these 
magazines have anything to publish in connection with the steelhead. 
Probably this is due in a great measure to the restricted natural 
habitat of this species and the fact that when compared to, the number 
of those who angle for brook trout or black bass, very few indeed have 
ever had the opportunity to come into actual combat with this finny 
warrior. Why its distribution over the United States, and especially 
so over the west, has not been more general, is something that I cannot 
understand. The Eastern brook trout has been fairly well scattered 
by the Bureau of Fisheries into the Western states, and the rainbow 
of the Pacific slope planted by hundreds of millions into the lakes and 
streams of the East; but the steelhead, which I believe to be a far 
superior game fish to either, has, with but few exceptions, been con- 
fined to those waters to which it is native. 
The natural range of this species is along the Pacific Coast of 
North America from Southern California to Northern Alaska. It is 
anadromous in its habits like the salmon, living part of its life in the 
sea and ascending the fresh-water streams for the purposes of repro- 
duction. It is a spring-spawning fish, although the runs of ascending 
fish and the breeding season varies greatly in different localities. In 
the southern waters and in those rivers which are of short length, the 
runs are in the early spring, and the eggs, maturing rapidly, are de- 
posited some few weeks later. The heaviest run of the steelheads in 
the Columbia River is from the last of August until the middle of 
November, but as they have to ascend the river and its tribuatries 
many hundreds of miles before reaching suitable spawning grounds, 
the actual breeding season is not until the following April or May. 
It is while in the lower reaches of these rivers, and fresh run from 
the sea, that this fish is in its finest condition, and they are then 
taken in immense numbers by the commercial fishermen for canning 
or being shipped East as salmon. I have often seen tons of these 
steelheads on display in the wholesale markets of New York, and 
which were being sold to the retailer by almost any other name from 
that to which they were entitled. I do not see why people would 
not buy them just as quickly when tagged as steelhead trout as by 
such names as ‘‘silver salmon,’’ ‘‘winter salmon’’ or ‘‘hardhead 
salmon.’’ 
It certainly is not surprising that these fish can be passed off as 
salmon on the unsuspecting, for when taken while they are still in 
salt or brackish water, their size, coloration and general appearances 
are almost identical with those of the Pacific salmons. It can easily 
be distinguished by its nearly square tail (which in the salmon is more 
deeply forked); its more slender form and shorter and smaller head. 
However, it is not my intention in this article to cover the natural 
history of this species in its native waters, or to tell of the glorious 
sport enjoyed by those fortunate anglers who have the opportunity to 
cast their flies and troll for this trout along the Pacific Coast. What 
