Mark Hieronymus poses with a steelhead caught in 2014 on a Southeast Alaskan river. (Photo by Tyson Fick)

Mark Hieronymus poses with a steelhead caught in 2014 on a Southeast Alaskan river. (Photo by Tyson Fick)

Hunting for fish in Alaska’s steelhead-bearing rivers and streams

For most people, steelhead — sea-run rainbow trout — are “the fish of 10,000 casts.” To catch them, you stand waist-deep in a spring-melt river, growing numb with cold as you cast … and cast … and cast.

Trout Unlimited sportfish outreach coordinator and Bear Creek Outfitter fishing guide Mark Heironymus says it doesn’t have to be that way. A better word than “fishing” for steelhead, he said, is “hunting.” You might go hours between casts, but once you line everything up right, you get your fish.

Though they’re as far north as the Copper River, 319 of the 340 or so steelhead watersheds listed in the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s Anadromous Waters Catalogue are in Southeast Alaska, Heironymus said. (If you count streams, rivers and lakes individually, said J. Johnson, the Alaska Department of Fish & Game’s anadromous waters catalog project biologist, there are 892 in Alaska as a whole “that we know of.”)

Heironymus said he fishes in at least a dozen unlisted streams a half hour’s flight from Juneau. Listed or unlisted, most see fewer than 200 spawning adults every year — though one river, the Situk in Yakutat, has thousands.

A different fishery

University of Alaska Southeast marine biology student Nick Whicker, 22, has caught a lot of salmon in four seasons as a purse seiner, but this spring, through a “Salmon, Sport and Society” class with University of Alaska Southeast Associate Professor of English Kevin Maier, he caught his first steelhead.

It’s partly commercial fishing, Whicker said, that led him to want to catch and release steelhead.

“The fact that I’m able to … go out and harvest thousands of salmon to sustain myself — that may be what inspired me to get into this conservation, catch and release fishery,” Whicker said.

Though Heironymus is a fishing guide, he doesn’t often take out people looking for steelhead — it’s too different from the average Lower 48 fishery. That’s part of what he likes about it.

“There’s days you catch a bunch. Days you throw stuff at them and they do nothing. But I think it’s everything surrounding it. The places you have to go to find (steelhead), for the most part, are not average or boring places. (They’re) wild fish living in wild places,” he said.

While most steelhead return to their natal rivers in the spring, some also return to their birth rivers in the summer, some in the fall, and some over the course of the winter. According to ADF&G, most anglers on Alaska’s most prolific steelhead river, the Situk, fish from April to June (the peak is May). Some fishermen like the challenge of winter fishing, as well.

Around 25 percent of steelhead in Alaska return to spawn more than once — some up to five times. This makes them pretty resilient to natural changes in their habitat, but they’re still “fairly easy to extirpate, because they need water quality,” Hieronymus said. “If you don’t get the water quality, you don’t get the fish.”

Steelhead once ran on rivers like the Columbia and as far south as Los Angeles, but development, overharvest and hatcheries have mostly pushed them out, Hieronymus said.

Wild places

One of Hieronymus’s most memorable sights in his years of fishing is coming across a huge clearing created by bears on Chichagof Island. In the center? A bear skeleton. Because it was early spring, everything was still visible.

“Two bears were fighting last fall, shredding the place, and there was the result of that contest,” he said.

Other times, melting slabs of ice had scoured the bark from the trees like they do in the interior — an unusual sight in Southeast.

“It’s like the river is doing the yawn, stretch, wake up-sort of thing and getting on with the summer,” he said.

Even if you are casting 10,000 times, “it’s not about catching fish. It’s more about engaging with place, and I think steelhead sort of embody that,” Maier said.

Whicker agreed. “It wasn’t until last days of our trip, after I had caught a steelhead, that it came into light. If you really care about a resource — this natural resource, which is salmon and steelhead — you want to take care of that…. The Situk River itself is unlike anywhere else on the planet. It’s just so natural. Once you go there, you understand why it’s one of the most productive steelhead rivers on the planet, if not the most productive on the planet.”

If you’d like to nominate a steelhead-bearing stream for inclusion in ADF&G’s catalog, you can do it here: https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/sf/SARR/AWC/


• Mary Catharine Martin is an award-winning science and outdoors writer and the communications director of SalmonState.


Nick Whicker poses on May 10, 2018 with his first steelhead, caught on the Situk River in Yakutat with a UAS Outdoors studies class taught by professor and Salmon Fellow Kevin Maier. The fish bit onto a fly Whicker had tied that morning (it already had a hook in its tail.) (Photo by Triston Chaney)

Nick Whicker poses on May 10, 2018 with his first steelhead, caught on the Situk River in Yakutat with a UAS Outdoors studies class taught by professor and Salmon Fellow Kevin Maier. The fish bit onto a fly Whicker had tied that morning (it already had a hook in its tail.) (Photo by Triston Chaney)

More in Neighbors

A change in season is marked by tree leaves turning color at Evergreen Cemetery in late September of 2019. (Michael Penn / Juneau Empire File)
Gimme a Smile: P.S. Autumn is here.

Ready or not, here it comes. The days are getting shorter, new… Continue reading

A double rainbow appears in Juneau last Friday. (Photo by Ally Karpel)
Living and Growing: Embracing Tohu V’vohu — Creation Amidst Chaos

Over the course of the past year, during which I have served… Continue reading

Birch and aspen glow orange in September in the Chena River State Recreation Area east of Fairbanks. (Photo by Ned Rozell)
Alaska Science Forum: The varying colors of fall equinox

We are at fall equinox, a day of great equality: All the… Continue reading

A male pink salmon attacks another male with a full-body bite, driving the victim to the bottom of the stream.(Photo by Bob Armstrong)
On the Trails: Eagle Beach strawberries and salmon

A walk at Eagle Beach Rec Area often yields something to think… Continue reading

Adam Bauer of the Local Spiritual Assembly of Bahá’ís of Juneau.
Living and Growing: Rúhíyyih Khánum, Hand of the Cause of God

Living in Juneau I would like to take a moment to acknowledge… Continue reading

A calm porcupine eating lunch and not displaying its quills. (Photo by Jos Bakker)
On the Trails: Prickly critters here and afar

Prickles, thorns, and spines of some sort are a common type of… Continue reading

The Rev. Karen Perkins.
Living and Growing: Coping with anger, shock and despair after a loss

The last several Living and Growing columns have included reflections about death,… Continue reading

A female humpback whale Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve biologists know as #219 breaches in the waters near the park. When a whale breaches, it often leaves behind flakes of skin on the surface of the ocean. Scientists can collect sloughed skin and send it to a laboratory to learn about the genetics or diet of the whale. (National Park Service photo by Christine Gabriele, taken under the authority of scientific research permit #21059 issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service)
Alaska Science Forum: The welcome return of an old friend to Icy Strait

There was a time when Christine Gabriele wondered if she’d ever see… Continue reading

Sandhill cranes fly over the Mendenhall wetlands. (Photo by Gina Vose)
On the Trails: An uncommon encounter with Sandhill cranes

One sunny day near the end of August, a friend and I… Continue reading

(Michael Penn / Juneau Empire File)
Living and Growing: Giving space for grief is healthy and grounded

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter… Continue reading

A rainbow spans North Douglas on Aug. 16. (Photo by Kelsey Riederer)
Wild Shots

To showcase our readers’ work to the widest possible audience, Wild Shots… Continue reading

The little blue stars of felwort flowers appear late in the season. (Photo by David Bergstrom)
On the trails: Out and about, here and there

On a foggy morning toward the middle of August, a friend and… Continue reading