This week Ian Tattam, a fishery scientist with Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, joins John to talk about summer steelhead in the John Day River, a tributary to the interior Columbia River basin.  Ian is not only a scientist, but also a died-in-the-wool steelheader who was raised fishing for Chinook and steelhead by his father.  In a wide ranging discussion, Ian details his upbringing as a youth in the PNW, what got him into steelhead and fishery science, his research on steelhead as a Graduate Student at Oregon State University, and finally, his recent research on how barging of hatchery steelhead smolts from the Snake River has contributed to really high stray rates into the John Day River.

Ian and John both attended Oregon State University and conducted some of their field work together, so they not only hit on the science, they also talk about their fun times together in the basin and how Ian came up with some cool sampling techniques. Tune into this episode if you love summer steelhead and want to understand the research Ian and others are doing to improve our knowledge about steelhead in the John Day River basin.