My partner and I hit the Touchet River today at around 10am. The river was crystal clear with clear blue skies and sunshine. We both fished with fly rods and floating line.

I was setup with an approximate 7' leader using a strike indicator with a black beaded wooley bugger fly pattern. I was hoping to see some brown trout with the possibility of getting into a steelhead.

After approximately 2 hours of fishing, we both hooked into 3 nice rainbows each. These rainbows averaged from 14" - 16". We never did see any browns or steelies, but the fishing was still worth while.

The Touchet River is substantially lower than the year prior and It will be an interesting summer if we don't get snow in the mountains soon for run-off. [/code]

OK, you know I'm bored when I'm bringing back 3 month old topics to reply to!

Glock, I understand that there is quite a run of one-salt steelhead in the Touchet. Is is possible that the fish you caught were one-salts? And how would you know the difference?

Just trying to keep the board moving here.

Interesting question. I've caught a few 18-20" rainbows that I'm fairly certain were steelhead; not on the touchet, but on the Walla Walla (could have been destined for the Touchet). It's hard to explain, but I think the two just look different. I've seen a few 16-18" rainbows, and they tend to be darker and thicker than the steelhead. By the time a steelhead gets as dark as a big resident rainbow, they're usually pretty darn skinny. On the coast, you'll occasionally get these one-salt steelhead "jacks" and it's obvious they are steelhead 'cause they're mint bright. It's a little trickier to tell out here.

You know, I wondered last year what I was into. I had several trout on which were thicker than trout but less than 20". I must have caught 6 of these fish last year.

My fishing buddy and I both scratched our head wondering if they were actually one-salt or not. The ones that we were into earlier this year were trout. I was a little earlier on the date. The acclimation pond wasn't even filled yet.