Winter Steelhead fishing is one of the most popular sport fishing seasons of the Pacific Northwest.
But, when is it? When is the best time to hook into some winter chrome ? That’s exactly what this brief article attempts to answer!
The primary opportunity for winter steelhead is between the months of November and April.
However, within those months, each river has a specific time period that is optimal for winter steelhead fishing. Additionally, there are often two distinct run timings of winter returning steelhead.
Let’s take one of the best winter steelhead rivers in the Pacific NW, the Bogachiel River.
The “Bogey” as it’s often referred to, has an early return of hatchery fish, which on some years will show up around Thanksgiving and generally finish by mid to late January.
This makes December and early January prime time to target this run of hatchery winter steelhead.
As the hatchery run dies down on the Bogey, the wild later returning fish begin to show up.
However, the prime time for these wild steelhead tends to be the month of March and early April.
By late April you may be catching the steelhead which has survived spawning and are headed back out to the great ocean buffet.
On the Cowlitz River, there’s a late returning stock of hatchery winter steelhead that shows up in February and really peaks in the months of March and early April.
Often, hatchery management attempts to separate hatchery and wild returns by choosing an early returning stock of steelhead that won’t intermix with the late returning wild fish during spawning.
In western Washington, I like to fish coastal rivers for early returning hatchery fish.
I then move to the Chehalis River system for the “in-between” season as they tend to get a nice hatchery return from February – March.
And then move to the late returning fish, wild or hatchery in March and April.
