Summer fish with winter eggs

[David Johnson]

steelhead will eat the eggs from other spawning fish just like the trout do in Alaska. Early summer fish eat winter run eggs, late summers eat spring chinook eggs, early winters eat fall chinok/coho/chum eggs. They just lay below the redds and pick up loose eggs.

[Alligator]

UB,

The fish had eaten the fertilized eggs that were floating down river that came from earlier spawning winter fish. I'm not an expert but thats the only way I can explain it.

If someone knows of another way a summer fish can have mature eggs inside along with the normal mini-skeins I'd like to hear.

http://www.ifish.net/uploads/08002098.jpg

The white part in the photo was clear.

[Alligator]

Oops, you beat me to the answer Dave:0

[Grant Scheele]

I would guess that fish had just spawned and what you saw were a few unexpelled eggs and next years eggs if she lived that long. I have seen this before. I doubt those were fertilized eggs unless you found them in her stomach.

[Huntar]

I believe what you saw were undeveloped eggs left-over in the remains of the skeins, and the few unexpelled eggs. The "eye" you mentioned is usually in eggs fertilized or not, although fertilized will turm opaque after fertilization with an "eye" forming later when the egg is more mature and closer to hatching.
The bright color could be from one of two things. Fish that spawn low in the river sometimes never "color up", it is pretty comon in coastal rivers on the Olympic Pen. (Bogy, Quillayute, and the Hump.Brighter fish also appear several weeks after an upper river fish spawns and they "brighten up" as they head back to salt water. I've seen this in several fish in the Columbia system and my brother sees them in the Rogue occasionally.
In other words, you caught a bright spawned-out fish.

[Alligator]

Here’s a new one. I caught a summer steelhead yesterday on the Clackamas, a nice 7-pound hen. When I cleaned the fish, I was shocked :whazzup: to find twenty to thirty mature steelhead single eggs. My first thought was Oh…it’s not a summer?? It sure was chrome for being a spawned down river fish, I thought. I then saw the small skeins that I was expecting. A closer look at the larger eggs reviled the eggs were fertilized, showing the eye in the center of the egg. From my reading at the hatcheries I guess these eggs to be 40 to 50 days after fertilization and if my memory is correct these eggs will hatch into sac’s fish in a couple of weeks. Interesting, the egg is transparent with an orange to peach colored eye, just like the peach corkies we all know to be successful.

Beautiful day on the river saw about ten boats, only one other boat with fish.

[Uncle Bob]

Some of the eggs were fertilized ???
What are you saying, that they can actually do IT?
I thought the eggs were only "squirted" after the hen drops them.
Is this bad science, or maybe some hanky-panky going on up stream. ???

On the other hand, if they could have live birth just like the jetty perch, then the summer fish wouldn't compeat with winter fish. Which salves the Clackamas Summer Steelee problem.
Yeah Right! I think that's all $$$ political.
Oh well, it was a nice thought. :smile:

UB

[ 04-09-2002, 12:35 PM: Message edited by: Uncle Bob ]

[Ramstrong]

I'm with Grant and Huntar,

Especially after looking at those eggs. It sure sounds like the fish was a downstream fish. I've been fooled before as well by a chrome downstream fish. If I would have been more observant, I would have noticed the wear on the bottom of the caudal fin from redd digging. When cleaning the fish there were un expelled eggs similar to what you have in your hand in the pic, as well as next years small skein. The thing tasted like cardboard though. How was the meat on the fish? If it was pale, it was most definately a down stream fish. If it was a nice bright orange then I guess it could have been a returning summer that didn't reabsorb it's eggs, but I find that unlikely.

[David Johnson]

"eyed" eggs are only fetilized eggs. They do not have the eye unless a fry is developing inside it.

Sounds like a early summer feeding behind the redd of winter steelhead.

Aligator stated there were two undeveloped skeins of eggs in her as well.

[Fishen Fool]

If the eggs were in the body cavity with the small egg skeins it was a runback. If the fish was a summer run and eating the eggs, they would be in the stomach and not visable unless you cut the stomach open.

[Ramstrong]

David, looking at the picture of the eggs in alligators hands. They don't appear to be eyed. The eye in eyed eggs are black, If I had to guess these eggs are turning opaque as they get reabsorbed by the fish on her way back to the ocean. Plus unless the stomach was cut open and these eggs found inside, they wouldn't be laying loose in the body cavity like unexpelled eggs would.

This is an eyed egg.

I'm not a real fish biologist, I just play one on TV.

[ 04-10-2002, 02:45 PM: Message edited by: Ramstrong ]

[Master Baiter]

They could also be opaque from direct contact with fresh water.

[David Johnson]

Yes it would. :smile:

[Alligator]

You won't like my answer! I wasn't paying attention until I noticed the single eggs, which were just inside the fish. I didn't just carefully remove the stomach then cut it open, the stomach was cut during the first cut of the knife. Also along with the eggs were two #4 red hooks with a cheater between.

I didn't think the meat/flesh was as orange as it should have been. Ramstrong, I think your right

Thanks for the input guys, I can't believe I kept a downriver fish :whazzup:

les

[Ramstrong]

Alligator,
Don't kick yourself to hard. Most everyone that steelhead fishes has done it at least once (most just don't admit it, or know any better). They sure chrome up on their way down. Like I said before, if you look at the caudal fin there should have been some wear from redd digging. The downstream fish I bonked wound up as fertilizer. You live and you learn.

[Jig-N-Bobberman]

Alligator,
Where the eggs in the body cavity or the somach? That would help in determining who's theory is correct. [img]graemlins/icon_argue.gif[/img]