GOLD BEACH — Harvey Wright heads to his favorite gravel bar along the lower 14 miles of the Rogue River almost daily now, hoping to pick a fight with one of Oregon’s most cantankerous winter residents.

He’s angling for winter steelhead, whose green-hued backs and snow-white bellies belie their legendary power and street-fighter heart.

"They’re beautiful, tough fish," says Wright, 69, of Gold Beach. "These fish coming in fresh from the ocean have some spunk, and they’re just looking for a problem."

Wright should have few problems hooking winter steelhead this season because he’s living and fishing smack-dab in the middle of wild winter steelhead heaven.

From the Chetco River to the Rogue and Elk rivers farther north, Curry County streams are starting to bustle with fresh, early-run winter steelhead that collectively make Southern Oregon a stronghold for wild steelhead and the anglers who stalk them.

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Healthy runs of wild fish spawning in some of the best winter steelhead habitat documented coast-wide make Wright’s waters and other gravel bars here the top spot to clash with a fish considered North America’s best pound-for-pound freshwater fighter.

"We arguably have the most robust populations of wild winter steelhead on the planet," says Russ Stauff, Rogue Watershed manager for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

"The Olympic Peninsula gets some press, but there isn’t anywhere better than here," Stauff says. "This is winter steelhead Mecca."

The worship begins now as winter steelhead start charging up the Elk, Chetco and lower Rogue, drawn by the high water from last week’s rainstorms.

Biologists are predicting strong returns of wild steelhead in each of these rivers. Even less fashionable fishing streams like the Pistol River and Hunter Creek near Gold Beach and the Winchuck River near the Oregon border are primed for good returns this year.

Fall chinook anglers on the Chetco River caught winter steelhead a month ago. With the steelhead’s come-early, come-often history, their presence sparks hope for a busy angling season.

"When the dust all settles from these storms, I expect you’ll see early wild steelhead in all the coastal streams," says Stauff, a former state fish biologist in Curry County. "If they show up early, you’re typically in for a big run."

For Wright, the steelhead are right on time.

Separate trips Sunday and Monday have yielded one steelhead each. He "plunks" off the gravel bar by casting a large Spin-Glo in fish migration lanes close to shore. The Spin-Glo rests in about 5 feet of water, anchored to the bottom by 5 ounces of lead.

"The fish I got (Monday) just grabbed it and ripped off down the river," Wright says. "I thought I had a really big one, but it turned out just to be a buck about 9 or 10 pounds. He had a lot of spunk."

Middle Rogue anglers can expect to share that spunk soon, Stauff says. He expects the first waves of fresh winter steelhead over Rainie Falls and into the middle Rogue just as the college bowl season winds down.

"I say you’ll see them there in the first part of January," says Stauff, an avid steelheader.

"It’s time to gear up," he says. "It should be a great year."

Predicting steelhead returns is a difficult at best, because the mix of factors that make or break a steelhead run are variable and unpredictable.

Spawning success, freshwater habitat conditions, ocean food and upwelling conditions, predation, and winter freshwater flows in angling streams all play a role on when, where and how many steelhead show up in area streams.

But the mushy science that is fisheries biology does provide a few insights that help justify anglers’ preseason optimism.

First, salmon and steelhead returns are strong coast-wide, and there’s no reason to believe the Rogue — Oregon’s richest anadromous-fish stream outside of the Columbia Basin — should be any different.

Secondly, the Rogue’s other salmon and steelhead runs are strong, and years of indexing shows that these winter steelhead are one of the least susceptible to abrupt dips.

But most importantly, wild coho returns have skyrocketed. ODFW crews in Gold Beach caught more than three times the wild coho during weekly seining at Huntley Park this fall than were caught last year.

Stauff says wild winter steelhead returns tend to track with wild coho returns.

"It’s nothing to hang your hat on," he says. "But it’s an indicator."

The Rogue’s winter steelhead run is about 80 percent wild, so expect a strong supply of adipose fins this year.

That can create a few frowns, Stauff says.

Anglers in December must release all wild fish, keeping only hatchery fish marked by clipped adipose fins.

Beginning Jan. 1, however, anglers downstream of Hog Creek near Merlin can keep one wild steelhead 24 inches a day. The annual wild-steelhead limit is five.

Like his two steelhead earlier this week, Wright catches primarily wild steelhead.

"I’m not interested in keeping that many, anyway," Wright says. "I guess we feel our job is to send them up river with a sore lip."

Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail mfreeman@mailtribune.com