The Tokul River has a delayed steelhead winter season until Feb. 28. Photo by Dave McCoy.

When most folks from the East envision winter steelhead fishing, they picture large West Coast rivers.

They see sprawling gray-green torrents, flanked by massive gravel bars and towering spruces and cedars.

They think of drift boats and long rods.

These are the classic images of winter steelheading in the Pacific Northwest. And when these people visit the coast, that's exactly the type of fishing they want to experience.

If they get with the right guide, and if the river is in shape and if there are enough steelhead in the river, then they'll catch fish.

However, most visiting anglers aren't aware that quite a few local fishermen catch just as many steelhead, if not more, in streams hardly any bigger than the ones those visitors fish back home.

After all, Washington State steelhead don't spawn only in massive river systems like the Skagit and Cowlitz and Quinault.

Each winter, they also return to dozens of small rivers and creeks.

Many of these waters remain open through at least part of the winter, and nearly all of them get hatchery steelhead.

There are a lot of reasons why locals would choose the creeks over the big rivers:
• For one, smaller waters get less pressure because they're too small for drift boats and rafts.
• Creeks are usually straightforward sequences of riffle-pool-tail-out that even visiting anglers can read.

The sprawling steelhead waters, especially glacial rivers, are often difficult to read, making it hard to distinguish productive waters from those that will never hold fish.
• Also, creeks and small streams with intact watersheds tend to stay in shape longer and clean up more quickly after storms.
• It's also easier to cover all the productive water on a creek and to fish smaller baits and lures.
• Perhaps best of all, in coastal Washington there are literally dozens of winter steelhead creeks.

Indeed, in most areas of Puget Sound, the Olympic Peninsula and southwest Washington, you usually have several ones to choose from that lie within a short distance of one another.

That lets anglers jump between several creeks during a short winter day. And that can increase your odds of ending up with fish.

Of all the small rivers and creeks to choose from, the five profiled below are arguably the most productive over time. And they're all located relatively close to a major population center.

Note that this month, the closing date for the Olympic Peninsula's Salmon River, Puget Sound's Tokul Creek and Cascade River is later -- Feb. 28.

The Hoko and southwest Washington's Elochoman remain open two weeks longer, closing on March 15.

THE HOKO
A classic Olympic Peninsula "cedar creek" with tea-colored water, an abundance of snags and logjams, a moss-festooned canopy of big-leaf maple and towering Sitka spruce, the Hoko is the largest river draining into the western Strait of Juan de Fuca.

It also receives the largest runs of hatchery and wild winter steelhead, and provides the largest sport harvest.

During typical winters, fishermen punch approximately 700 steelhead.

As with other "creek-sized" winter steelhead rivers, you need to get into the Hoko River and wade in it.

Its good steelhead water is easy to identify. The fish tend to hold above bedrock slots and shelves, near cutbanks and the tail-outs of small pools.