Yes, no, maybe steelhead

There are many fish I have significant feelings for. Having grown up in the green water-Midwest, I will go to my grave with an unerasable soft spot for largemouth bass. A parallel upbringing on Lake Michigan and a decade in New England since have left me somewhat equally and forever lusting after smallmouth and brown trout and lake trout and brook trout…you get it. My love for each is equitably deep and between the examples themselves, there’s much crossover.

Unsurprisingly, first cousins largemouth and smallmouth are commonly found in the same fisheries, if not just occupying different parts of them.  Similarly, all three example salmonids have dietary and behavioral crossovers. In many cases, stream resident brookies and browns swim side by side and can even mate to yield the hybrid tiger trout. Lakers and brookies, char species which both carry the misnomer ‘trout,’ are first cousins and can also hybridize.

Of these examples at the tip-top of my lifetime targets list, though, the incomparable steelhead rainbow trout owns a unique set of metrics identifiable with few other fish.

For the sake of our purposes here, I will most specifically be talking about the introduced steelhead of the Great Lakes. In the conversation surrounding steelies in their native range, I’ll quickly find myself out of depth. I do encourage you to investigate that dialogue for yourself, as the original Pacific steelhead fishery and its protectors are embattled in one of the most significant marine conservation efforts of our time. If you’re able, consider a donation to the many indigenous, fisheries-based and/or public conservation organizations working tirelessly to secure the future of prehistoric coastal-Pacific migrations.

That said: like a handful of the other examples, I grew up catching steelies along the coasts of Lake Michigan, maintaining some of my most cherished fishing memories from those patterns. As is often the case across the Great Lakes, Lake Michigan’s residing steelhead represent a melting pot of various straining. Individuals amongst each will commonly display both behavior and seasonal characteristics generally owing to one strain or another.

An all-time favorite pattern of mine lies on the southwest coast of Michigan where often vast populations of chromatic, Skamania-strain steelhead run well inshore, sometimes creeping as far in as the no-wake buoys. There, fish routinely use swells as stunt ramps to take flight, usually appearing to clear one’s head. In other places, giant Ganarska-strain steelies move into the cool spring runoff of inland tributaries, following instinctual (and impotently fruitless) urges to dig redds and mate. The double-banded males of this strain are known to grow in excess of forty inches and are a legendary trophy, owed to their stunning, wall-to-wall crimson flanks; a feature generally unique to the Ganarska.

In any case, lake-run steelies have kept so many of the tendencies that define them in their original north-Pacific range; a distinct set of behaviors and variables that yield a maddeningly difficult target to approach. An important piece of vocabulary when considering the steelhead life cycle is the term, pelagic. Generally defined, the word refers to the upper columns of water in the open ocean. When applied to animals, we can simply understand that a fish which spends most of its life racing across the open sea—either in pursuit of equally speedy prey or in escape of their own predators—is usually defined as pelagic. In their native range of the Pacific northwest, the ‘silver bullet’ steelhead’s life cycle at sea is often categorized as pelagic, or semi-pelagic. So, what’s the relevance of this saltwater-specific concept to understanding landlocked steel?

Anyone who’s been there knows that every Great Lake is a small ocean. What they lack in tides, saline content, nightmare-inducing dorsal fins and other justified phobias, each more than makes up for with a properly endless horizon of pure, unfiltered room to run. In terms of life cycle, not much has changed for big lake steelies in their foreign, sweet water home. Hundreds of miles of open water, endless fathoms of lightless depth and year-round cold allow them to all but mirror their original description. In the same way that offshore anglers from Eureka or Reedsport may be privileged to watch their graphs explode as blitzing trout frenzy over and under vast systems of herring, the same opportunity is present for alewife-trackers from Chicago or Milwaukee who’ve headed out far enough to dwindle the skylines.

All this geeking-out is to say that everywhere steelhead swim, there are uniform variables of a pelagic lifestyle which, in turn, make them terribly difficult to pattern. Like so many other saltwater sport fish—pelagic or not—steelies are either there, or they are not. In contrast to lake-mates like black bass, walleye or pike—all of whom generally spend their lives relating to permanent/stable structure—the steelhead goes where the food goes. Favorite prey for lake-run steelies, like the alewife or emerald shiner, maintain similar preferences to their predators. They move through open water in vast schools and are utterly partial to cool and clean swimming and feeding space. If these variables aren’t aligned and present, neither the bait nor the steelhead will be either.

Those lucky enough to live on one of the five lakes may think, “Well just wait for cool rain and overnights to clear out the crap, should be good to go by next week.” For the rest of us who consider steelhead fishing to be a once, twice maybe thrice-annual treat, we are not so fortunate. For us, the cruel intersection of practicality and timing so often leaves one feeling T-boned.

With travel comes advanced planning. For the sake of cost and sanity, I don’t know many who are willing to pull the trigger on a big, last-minute outing (and make no mistake, any steelhead venture is a big trip no matter how it’s sliced). Living at least five hours from the nearest steelie opportunity, I am all but unwilling to consider a Great Lakes send without several weeks of planning and prep, bare minimum. If nothing else, I simply can’t afford the significant rate increase most last-minute bookings entail.

That is to say that for traveling steelheaders, the entire affair is a gamble. At the bottom line, you cannot expect steelies to be literally anywhere…ever. Timing these fish is an inherent contradiction because without living on the lake itself, the minute-by-minute changes—which can either yield days you’ll never forget or ones you wish you could—are completely unknown and unquantifiable. Having been one of the lucky few to grow up on such a fishery, even then I can remember many days from boats, the piers—hell, even in the tributaries—when fish would be thronging on an overcast, 65° Tuesday and might as well have never even existed on the overcast, 65° Wednesday.

The cruel reality is that along with everyone else lustily chasing (and often, never finding) steelhead, I don’t have an answer for the traveler’s equation. As far as I know, there is no app or special satellite-based program which can invariably lead you to them. Whether on the open lake or in the tribs—and short of sleeping in a parking lot with all your gear, which I’ve never been a fan of—one just has to book some days with the best intel available, and hope that angling’s Greek chorus of conditional variables—food, air & water temperature, precipitation, air & water clarity, chop, barometer, pressure, yada yada—allow success within the limit of your capability.

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This past July 4th holiday, my extended family collectively booked a phenomenal, lakefront AirBnB for the entire week. The trip was a lovely reunion for our family, all of whom have not been together since my grandparents passed away during the darker days of the pandemic. The accommodation was in South Haven, MI; the apparently no-longer-so-small dunes village my grandparents had owned a cottage in throughout my adolescence, and the location of this company’s namesake, the North Pier. Backgrounded by a long-loved view of the rivalrous North and South Pier lights, I was excited to spend most of the time catching up with loved ones, and so was more than okay to give fishing the back seat this time.

When the trip was booked last year, though, I knew that the timing should *fingers-crossed* line up with the increasingly consistent inshore run of steelhead every July 4th. The run is a bit of an anomaly as, even in the best years, the inshore waters churning around the piers are usually well beyond the comfortable range of steelhead who usually maintain truly frigid preferences. No matter the reason, though, the past two decades have seen exponentially increased, en masse, shore-bound movement from these fish come July.

With them, a pilgrimage of chrome-hungry anglers flock under the lighthouses and out to the fleet line for their chance at a big, silvered-up lake-runner. In the best seasons, trout are so aggressive and abundant that the chosen approach—whether from pier or boat—is often to simply float a jumbo cocktail shrimp below a slip bobber and wait, usually not for long. The hilarity of this approach has less to do with the restaurant-quality of the bait, and more that the bobber really only functions to suspend the rig. In true Skamania-strain form, bites are more often indicated by the sight or sound of a 30+ inch trout entering the stratosphere before plummeting back to Earth.

Even though fishing wasn’t to be the main purpose of this most recent trip, I couldn’t help but fall into a rotating cycle of daydreaming, planning and prep during the weeks and months beforehand. Honestly, who could help that? With the countdown around T-10 days to hit the road, I was building up a pile fool-hardy confidence while endlessly thumbing local reports that all seemed to reflect the same sentiment: they’re here. The Kool-Aid on tap told of a pervasively cold thermocline and impeccable clarity; a cup that I was more than happy to drink. The lacking reps—resulting from a decade away in New England—sent me down the wrong street while forgetting the cardinal laws of steelhead: trust nothing & no one and expect them nowhere, ever.

In the week leading up to our arrival, high-pressure heat set upon southern Lake Michigan like a thunder blanket over a frightened dog. In a few short days, the ideally cool surface layers were seared to a crisp. The compounding effect of droving Chicagoans and college students fleeing the city’s heat lamp for Michigan’s swimming beaches left the entirety of the inshore not only exponentially hotter, but also categorically churned up; an effect owed to an entire region’s worth of outboard traffic. The day we arrived, the hypothetical perfect storm triangulated with a very real, very violent thunderstorm. By morning, the water column was turned on its head and visibility slashed as far out as the eye could see. Within 48 hours, thousands and thousands of July 4th celebrators collapsed upon South Haven and after one of the biggest fireworks shows anywhere on the Great Lakes, the final effect was laid to bare. As the smoke quite literally cleared, the reality of this long-awaited steelhead gambit was undeniable. I couldn’t blame them, or the bait they’re chasing. If given the choice between endless miles of quiet, clear and cool water to hunt and the world’s largest party barge, I’d be inclined to pick the former.

The morning after the fireworks, I dragged my hungover hind into the semi-nauseating predawn to tackle my first, kayak-borne outing of the trip. After a frantic search around the AirBnB kitchen, I seethingly abandoned my quest to find coffee filters in the interest of first light; a harrowing mistake. Our accommodation was built high up on a hill with a rocky crash at the bottom where it met the lake—an uncommon access in an area known for its big, flat beaches. Now delayed by my filter search, I decided that I didn’t have time to drive down to the kayak launch and resolved to push off from the rocks below. On this particularly surfy morning, it probably should’ve been evident that this was a foul decision. Without a single milligram of caffeine and the more-than-remnant effects of the previous night’s festivities, I slugged the yak and half a guide service’s volume of gear down the steep embankment and onto the surf break below. In the interest of pushing our story along, I’ll leave it at the waves looked a hell of a lot smaller on top of that hill…

After what, in hindsight, was a properly dangerous launch, I was miraculously able to pierce through the break bars with self and equipment intact. Setting a course for the North Pier, I double-timed the two-or so-mile paddle. Armed with clousers, paddletails and shrimp as a starting lineup, I began working the pier—one which has so shaped my angling, personal and professional lives—for the first time in my adulthood.

Unable to see the end of my kayak paddle much less the bottom, and with water temps comfortable for swimming, I settled that this first outing after steelies would likely be my last on this trip. Whether by the grace of nature, the angling deities and/or the ethereal influence of my grandparents and dad, there were two willing steelhead working the pier that morning: one at about 24”, which took a clouser, and the other at 26” on a shrimp. In the interest of good credit, both were sent on their way. By noon, the morning’s meager action completely dried up and I began my paddle back.

Along the way, my optimism got the better of me as I considered the morning’s relative success and what it might mean for the rest of the trip. No better opportunities would come, though, as each passing day was joined by more heat, overnight storms, traffic and even, regrettably, a hole in my kayak’s hull that was likely sustained in the whole surf/boulder-based launch & land fiasco. On our seventh and final day, I rerigged the injury-reserved kayak back up with the same steelie stats to my name as that first, nauseous outing.

So, what is the point, the logical thinker may ask? Is all of this to say that the steelhead send is too ill-advised a gamble for the traveling angler? Are you left to believe that victory or defeat in pursuit of these fish is as much in your autonomous control as star-crossed fate itself? The answer is yes, and no. As I said many words ago, I, unsurprisingly, do not hold an answer to the journeying steelheader’s equation. The ‘yes’ of this answer is a harsh reality: you really might spend all that time, money and energy only to get screwed—soaked, cold, tired and skunked. That is more than possible, potentially even likely. The “no” is what’s important, though.

The beauty and obsession of angling may all but entirely lie in the very fact that it is reliant on an infinite set of conditional variables that no angler who’s ever thrown a cast has had a morsel of control over. Sure, steelhead are a bit of a special case—in general, they move faster and less predictably than many of their neighbors, especially in freshwater. But the simple fact is that all fish are pretty freaking difficult to anticipate and pattern. As much as we (often anthropomorphically) understand them, I would venture a guess that every angler cyclically experiences that unwelcome, species-irrelevant instance in which they have done everything right down to the letter, but no dice. Skunked. We can only plan and readjust; the rest is beyond us.

The morning after the kayak outing, I mounted up and headed back out to the North Pier, this time on foot. I packed the same steelhead outfit, riding coat tailed confidence from yesterday’s bit of success. The best light came and went, and by mid-morning, it was clear that the heat both in the air and underwater was not only too much for my disintegrating cocktail shrimp, but for the steelhead run as well. It’s at this moment that our “no” is answered, though. Accepting the “yes,” the traveling steelheader must quickly audible. No dwelling in sorrow, no shoulda coulda, no moping. There are quite literally a lot of fish in the sea, time to go find them.

Despite nil steelhead activity on that second morning, I couldn’t help but notice a significant amount of smaller surface activity ranging from the base of the pier to maybe even thirty or so yards off of it. The strikes were quick and seemingly random, however, on several of these instances, I was sure I’d glimpsed the tell-tale markings of both large and smallmouth bass on their way back down. I resolved to abandon the trout and tied on a jerkbait, a bronze beauty and a Neko rig. Sure as anything, the pier’s primary pattern on this trip would be bass. That first day of plan B-ing, I shook some cobwebs off and dropped more than half of my opportunities, however, was intent to return and make something of the trip.

The next morning, I left the steelhead regime at home and set a course for a twenty-pound bag. Starting with a Zara Super Spook in the early morning, I picked off several pristine largemouth while taking advantage of the same frenzied surface activity I had witnessed the previous morning. By the 9am burn off, bass had pulled off the top and were evidently munching on bait as a 4” Keitech Swing Impact started having a real tough time getting back to the pier in one piece. By noon, the action moved down into crawfish territory and sustained in the rocks beyond my ability to withstand the heat. By day’s end, I walked with a twenty-one-pound top five and was able to repeat the pattern in the following days. Steelhead who?

The “no” comes with the angler’s persevering spirit towards the obsessive, infinite and at times, unhealthy pursuit of ray-finned animals. Every angler I’ve ever known will take a fish anywhere, any time and of any description. Entitlement has no place in angling; an amount of money spent or preparations made simply do not grant one the right to catch. Pardon my French, but the sun, rain and waves don’t give much of a rat’s ass about our expectations; so we lower them.

If it means much to you, my prescription is to invest just as much time and effort researching and planning for contingencies as one does for a fiberglass wall mount. Speaking for myself, had I come more correct in this instance, I would’ve been working that pier on day one with my plan B equipment firmly in hand. My daydreams wouldn’t have been solely populated by migratory rainbow trout, but also by black bass, pike & muskie, walleye & perch etc.; and thus, I would be less setting myself up for the painfully likely possibility of heartbreak & disappointment.

For the boating steelheader: where are the kings? Cohos? Lakers? Whitefish? For the tributary hopeful: what do you know about three-foot long brown trout? Spawn-hungry, five-pound smallmouth? As a steelheader, local or traveling, my two cents are to always aim at being pleasantly surprised and embrace a multi-species mindset in between.

And my final, unbearably cliched thought: never give up. In the same way they can simply vanish, those steelhead will invariably and equally-suddenly reappear. My great friend, Max, and I found ourselves in a somewhat similar pickle while fishing the tributary run this past spring. We spent four days searching and generally missing the meager opportunities we were presented. Over a hundred hours in and running low on just everything, we kept our heads down and pushed for new water, eventually finding ourselves amongst the lucky to be rewarded.

We were finally able to line Max up on the only fish (and there weren’t many) that we got to sit still during the entire trip: a truly biblical Ganarska. After snagging a white dungeon in the gravel on an 8wt. Orvis, Max was able to pop the fly free and directly into the lightning strike maw of that utterly omnipotent male. A frenetic, ten-minute fight in combat conditions ensued, and as the dust cleared downstream, a thirty-six inch, double-banded kype was framed for a quick picture before a green and swift release. A few moments of wind-clutched silence echoed in the immediate aftershock. It could only last briefly before an anticipated and jubilant thrash of celebration in success of the lofty goal each of us had traveled many hundreds of miles in pursuit of.

After a ten-year effort towards revealing Max to the globally elite fisheries that are the Great Lakes, it was his first steelie to net and the biggest sweet water fish of his life by far. Perhaps in greater measures, though, it was really a willingness to accept unchangeable variables, keep an open mind and come back each day as if it were the trip’s first that allowed us to take home the memories and pictures that we did.

As the tributary season draws ever closer, I hope to leave you thinking about the productive balance between a well laid out armada of contingencies and a hell bent, teeth-gritted sworn vow to never give up. As my dad always said, “Rods not in the water don’t catch fish.” So, keep casting, keep covering water and keep earning it until, at long last, sweet payoff arrives. And as always: Eat. Breathe. Fish.