In contrast, rivers like the Sol Duc, the Queets, and other coastal rivers tend to be smaller, steeper, receive more rainfall, and have less volcanic geology, all of which tends to make them inherently less productive for growing large trout.
Conservation Corner: Disappearing Summer Steelhead – The Fate of Overshoot Steelhead Seeking Cold Water in the Columbia and Snake Rivers
Overshoot steelhead have long been understood to be a factor among Columbia Basin populations, but a pair of recent studies using tagged adult fish (Richins and Skalski 2018, and Murdoch et al. 2022) have demonstrated the phenomenon is much more extensive than previously thought. This has huge implications for steelhead management and recovery, and the operation of the basin’s hydropower system.
Gary Marston, the Science Advisor for Trout Unlimited’s Wild Steelheaders United, writes in-depth about the studies and their implications in a pair of articles published by @wildsteelhead and summarized in this ‘Conservation Corner’ for @SwingTheFly.