12-04-2010, 04:22 AM
I'm working on a masters degree on this very subject. while the percentage of Idaho steelhead that actually manage to make it back down through all 8 dams, then back up to spawn again is very low, as in less than 2%, it does happen. I think it's pretty impressive that it happens at all. But you're right, short coastal streams typically have higher incidence of repeat spawning.
One of the fish that I tagged this April in a lower Clearwater trib made it all the way back down the river fattened back up and crossed Bonneville dam in 132 days. She was up passed Granite only a couple weeks after that. If you think about how empty their gas tank is after spending two thirds of a year without eating, then to refill that gas tank in the ocean in two or three months, it's amazing to me that it's possible at all. But then these are pretty amazing fish.
[signature]
One of the fish that I tagged this April in a lower Clearwater trib made it all the way back down the river fattened back up and crossed Bonneville dam in 132 days. She was up passed Granite only a couple weeks after that. If you think about how empty their gas tank is after spending two thirds of a year without eating, then to refill that gas tank in the ocean in two or three months, it's amazing to me that it's possible at all. But then these are pretty amazing fish.
[signature]