Compared to steelhead streams on the West Coast, streams entering the Great Lakes receive insanely larger runs of steelhead. Meaning, your chance of hooking into one of these beautiful, leaping giants is much greater in a Great Lake tributary. I’ll walk you through how to locate and target steelhead in the Great Lakes tributaries, an offer some general steelhead fishing tips below.
Steelhead are rainbow trout that are born in a stream and then migrate to the lake during the summer months to feed and grow. After the summer months, they migrate from the lake back into the stream for two main purposes: to feed and spawn. There are two major runs of steelhead, a fall run and a spring run. The fall run begins approximately in September when the salmon begin to migrate upstream, and tends to peak around December. The spring run usually peaks sometime in April. However, many steelhead fall somewhere in between these two runs and good numbers of fish are likely to be present in the tributaries anytime from October to April. Many steelhead will also migrate into the river during the fall to feed, and stay in the river all winter long until they spawn in April.
Having personally fished almost every tributary to Lake Ontario, I can tell you that steelhead can be found in almost every tributary to the Great Lakes that has a reasonable water flow. However, some tributaries certainly receive greater runs of fish than others. If crowds and drift boats are too crazy on some of the bigger named streams, try fishing a lesser known tributary.
Once you’ve found a tributary that contains steelhead, determine if the tributary has any impassable waterfalls or dams. Steelhead will not be able to move upstream passed these barriers, so you know they can only be located in the stream downstream of the barrier. Usually, steelhead will be heavily congregated just below the barrier, or within a mile walk downstream of the barrier.
There are two types of steelhead to target in the river, those that are migrating upstream, and those that are currently in the river and are stationary and holding. You want to try to target the second type because their holding in more predictable locations, and the first type will pass through these holding locations anyways. Since steelhead are primarily in the river during the cold winter months, their mainly located in slow, deep water, such as in the heads of pools, pools, and deep runs. If you find spawning salmon, steelhead will also be a few feet downstream of them gorging on salmon eggs.
Steelhead running from the lake are moving upstream and can be found in the same locations as those that are actively holding, but additionally can be found anywhere throughout the river system. Try to find a narrow section of the river where it funnels the fish through just one or two small current lanes. Steelhead will generally move upstream through the same predictable current lanes, so once you find a consistent current lane, stay there and wait for fish to move through. Steelhead will generally move upstream at the greatest rates during low light conditions, such as dawn, dusk, and when it’s cloudy.
Since water temperatures are cold, steelhead are taking almost all of their food on the river bottom. Their feeding on salmon eggs, brown trout eggs, suckerfish eggs, steelhead eggs, and salmon flesh, so you should mainly use egg and flesh imitations. However, steelhead are rainbow trout and will eat aquatic insect nymphs present in the stream if they are available as well. Eggs turn a white-yellow color after they are laid, so my personal favorite egg flies are those in white or chartreuse. Fertilized eggs also turn pink as they grow, so I’ve found pink to be a good color as well. Orange and blue are popular egg fly colors as well.
Steelhead get used to seeing a lot of the same baits and flies because many of the Great Lakes tributaries receive a lot of angling pressure. If steelhead are not cooperating, try using something that is completely different from what everybody else is using. For example, if the majority of people are using egg sacs and egg flies, try throwing nymphs.
More information on trout nymphing can be found in my guide book SIMPLE NYMPHING FOR TROUT IN RIVERS & STREAMS.
If you enjoyed and found the information in this post helpful, you can enter your email HERE to be notified of future posts like this.