Spawning different runs together

[Jennie@ifish]

On the way to Portland, or whenever Bill and I drive long distances together, we get into these long conversations about fish behaviour.

On the way to the Steelheader Banquet the other night, we talked about the life cycle of the springers that we had clipped that morning.
(I do that to him... "Bill, tell me the story of what will happen to these Chinook... :smile: )

I forget.. Do these fish go right out into the ocean, or do they stay in for a while?

I got to wondering... What if an early returning Fall Chinook were to meet up with a late returning Springer? Would they spawn together? And if so, what would they produce? Would the fish come back in the fall, or in the spring?

...and then, this question: What happens, if an early maturing (2 year old) Springer buck (jack), came back to spawn with a four to five year old hen?
Would that bucks genetic predisposition to spawn early carry over into the fry, or would they all turn out with the regular percentage of early returning fish occurring in normally spawning adults?
I spoke to Jim Martin about it that night at the banquet, and he said that in an study with winter and summer steelhead, some returned as summers, and some returned as winters and others returned at abnormal times. So, there was really no specific results...

Interesting, huh?

Jen