Where to fish for winter steelhead in Washington? This blog page attempts to answer this question comprehensively without giving away everyone’s favorite rivers.
I don’t do river naming here unless it’s already a very popular place to fish.
However, if you are just getting started with steelhead fishing, or are looking for a new place to roam and explore, or perhaps visiting from out of state, this page should be exactly where you should start to determine where to fish for winter steelhead in Washington state.
And will certainly help you more than asking a fishing social media group or a recent YouTube video comments section this question.
There are 3 primary ways to get intelligence about where to fish for steelhead in Washington state. And by where I mean which rivers are worth your time. I will not be covering “Where on River X should I fish?” in this page as it’s covered in the links down below.
My guide to winter steelhead fishing should give you many ideas about how to figure out where on a river one should target fishing for winter steelhead.
If you’ve already identified a good winter steelhead river, but arn’t sure which part of the river to fish, visit our page devoted to learning how to read water for steelhead here.
Also, one more bit of preamble here…we are talking about hatchery steelhead in every one of these scenarios. There is fishing allowed typically for wild steelhead in the form of catch and release, but I’m not going to cover that.
If you are just tuning in (in 2021 / 2022), we have a major crisis going on with wild steelhead populations on the Washington Coast and this is also a challenge in rivers that have both hatchery and wilds are our ability to target hatchery fish is limited by the low return forecast status of the wild steelhead on the same rivers.
Steelhead Smolt Plant Statistics
Steelhead smolt at around 8″ in length and are released from hatcheries into target rivers and streams. From this point, they will migrate downstream and out to the saltwater.
Knowing where WDFW has planted smolts the year(s) prior will give you some clues about the most likely places to target returning hatchery steelhead.
Steelhead can spend 1-4 years in the saltwater and can even be repeat spawners unlike salmon.
The majority of winter steelhead will be 1-2 salt fish (meaning 1-2 years in the salt water) so the 2019 and 2020 smolt plant statistics would of great interest for someone looking to fish for winter steelhead in the 2021/2022 season.
Steelhead which are 1-2 salt fish will typically be 6-12 lbs which is about the going rate for most steelhead.
Steelhead which are in the mid to upper teens and even 20 lbs+ are 3-4 salt fish and are more rare, but certainly available in many rivers as well.
Puget Sound Region
You can see all the steelhead smolt plant history in the state of Washington as reported by WDFW at this link.
Steelhead Escapement Reports
Escapement refers to hatchery steelhead that have made it back to the hatchery. You would like escapement to match the smolt plant numbers in some way, but typically only 1-3% of smolts return as adult steelhead to make it back to the hatchery to spawn.
Keep in mind that if you are looking to time a run of winter steelhead, only relying on the hatchery escapement reports might not be your best bet for a variety of reasons. The number one reason being the reports are not always timely and some great returns of steelhead will precede the first escapement report by multiple weeks.
If you want to double verify that the river you are planning to fish for winter steelhead has returning adult steelhead, you can look at the previous years escapement report, consider the numbers, weigh the odds and make a more informed decision.
Here’s the link to the escapement reports on the WDFW site
WDFW Fishing Regulations
If you’ve examined a few rivers which have great smolt plants, verified they have decent returns of winter steelhead, you just have to load up the gear and jump in the truck to head out there and wet a line, right? No so fast.
Is the target river actually open for angling for winter steelhead? You would think it would be open if it had good returns of hatchery steelhead, cause otherwise, why plant the hatchery steelhead in the first place, right?
However, as the case has been in the 2020-2021 winter seasons and certainly what 2021-2022 look to be shaping up to be, on rivers that have both wild and hatchery winter steelhead (which is most of them…), the rivers will not always be open to fish to protect the returning wild steelhead.
Here’s the bottom line: Know before you go.
Here’s a link to the fishing regs on the WDFW site.
Don’t be that guy or gal on the bank by yourself, amazed that you found the perfect steelhead river with nobody else fishing it…well, until the WDFW enforcement shows up…assuming we still have that? I digress…
