Six Hundred Thousand Steelhead are being released into the Sacramento River near Red Bluff this week. Crews from the Coleman National Fish Hatchery in Anderson have been loading the fish into trucks for the trip to the Bend Bridge boat launch and releasing them into the river for their eventual trip to the Pacific Ocean. The Steelhead are generally released the first week of January, and this year conditions are ideal due to the high river levels. They will spend the next two years in the salty waters of the ocean before returning to Coleman to spawn. Unlike Salmon however, the Steelhead do not die after spawning. They will repeat the cycle after returning to the ocean again.