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Since You Asked: 'Retread' steelhead releases in Rogue solid, but no record this year Thursday Jan 5, 2017 at 12:01 AM I regularly fish the Rogue River, and for some reason this year I have caught way more of those retread steelhead than in past years. Did the hatchery folks recycle more steelhead this year than normal? Are they planning on doing any more this year? — J.B., Email submission We at Since You Asked Central are often asked about Cole Rivers Hatchery's recycling of excess summer steelhead in the Rogue River so anglers can have a second chance to catch and keep these dandy denizens. In fact, there's even some ownership of the program here, because the Since You Asked pundits are the ones who came up with the moniker "retread steelhead." For those anglers new to the world of upper Rogue steelhead, here's how it works: Each week, the hatchery cleans out its collection pond, and there are almost always more hatchery-bred summer steelhead in there than are needed for brood fish. The excess are held separately in a concrete raceway until there are enough to recycle. They get a paper-punch in their right gill plate to denote their retread status, then they are trucked down to TouVelle State Park and released. The gill plate punch is so those that show up again in the hatchery collection pond aren't counted twice. That would skew the counts. This year, hatchery technicians were able to recycle 3,218 steelhead from its collection of the 3,639 steelhead that entered the collection pond so far this run, according to hatchery statistics. That includes 1,107 retreads that got trucked to TouVelle last week for release just before Free Fishing weekend New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. While it sounds like a lot, and we're sure glad you've caught your share, J.B., this year's retreads didn't set any records. This year the hatchery recycled slightly fewer steelhead than it did last year, which was right around average, records show. The top retread season came in 2003, when 15,955 retreads ran the angling gauntlet at least a second time. Some even more. The numbers of retreads in any given year generally track with run size. And that's it for this year's run. No hatchery summer steelhead are recycled after Dec. 31 to ensure they don't stray onto wild summer steelhead spawning grounds. — 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.