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Since You Asked: Applegate fish trap checked at month's end Tuesday Jan 17, 2017 at 12:01 AM It was nice to see in Friday's Oregon Outdoors section that Rogue River winter steelhead are already all the way up to Cole Rivers Hatchery. But what about the Applegate River? Are the steelhead all the way up yet to the trap at Applegate Dam? I like to fish the Applegate in the winter and normally don't start very seriously until February, but if the steelhead are all the way up the Rogue, chances are they're all the way up the Applegate. — B.F., email submission We at Since You Asked share your curiosity when it comes to fishy things around here and eagerly jumped at getting you an answer. First, Friday's story detailed how the first two Rogue hatchery steelhead were counted Wednesday in the trap at the hatchery, their bright bodies sticking out among the older and riper summer steelhead and coho salmon counted there that day. It was the third-earliest showing in the past 23 years, with the other earlier ones coming during the 2015 and 2014 runs, leading biologists to believe high water and the removal of Savage Rapids and Gold Ray dams are likely behind these early showings. Anglers can now expect to see at least some winter steelhead all the way up the Rogue, but we won't learn about the Applegate any time soon. David Pease, the hatchery's manager, says his technicians don't plan to open the trap until the last week in January, because the techs don't expect many steelhead all the way up there until then. If they're early, no problem. The trap is shut "so all they can do is swim around near the fish ladder," Pease says. Like they do on the Rogue, Cole Rivers crews spawn and raise winter steelhead that are released at the base of Applegate Dam. The hatchery programs are meant to mitigate for lost spawning and rearing habitat of wild winter steelhead because of the construction of Lost Creek and Applegate dams. — Send questions to “Since You Asked,” Mail Tribune Newsroom, P.O. Box 1108, Medford, OR 97501; by fax to 541-776-4376; or by email to [email protected]. To see a collection of columns, go to mailtribune.com/youasked. We’re sorry, but the volume of questions received prevents us from answering all of them.