Floated the American yesterday for Steelhead.....

[Jeff C.]

Well said Bill!

[Blueracer]

To not call a steelhead, a steelhead, because it did not originate in that location and never been in salt, is quite silly. Steelhead is not synonymous with anadromous. A potamodromous steelhead looks the same as an anadromous steelhead. It is their look that gives the name.

Quoting a few lines from the book "Steelhead Dreams". Page 15, "As a steelhead fly fisher, I have oberserved and pursued both Great Lakes and Pacific steelhead. I firmly believe that due to the less complicated physiological demands on potamodrous steelhead, they often have a unique predisposition. Since they forgo the metabloic complicatoin of the salt/freshwater transitions-which taxes the renal system regulating the amount of salts in the bloodstream each up and down river migration-Great Lakes fish seem to have greater mobility and urgency in migration, spawning, habitat preference and attitude when striking a fly."

The author currently runs this guide service. http://www.graydrake.com/ I'm not plugging just providing information on the source of the information within this book.

- Aaron was making a joke...BUT...steelhead do in fact reproduce naturally in various great lakes regions. What Bill said about focusing our energy on improving habitat and bringing back the numbers is so very true. It would be sad if fish management became so poor that one day the West needed to bring fish from the Midwest to restore numbers.

[Jed Peters]

Seriously though, who cares where a fish comes from? This is kinda crazy, when I make one off colored remark in jest, it starts a whole "steelhead great lakes vs. pacific ocean" debate.

People, these fish are pretty great regardless of what body of water they come from! And there aren't that many of them, and they're hard as hell to catch. For these people that think I wasn't totally joking...well, you just need to lighten up.

If you can't have a sense of humor and you're a steelhead angler....man, you got big problems.

[Tiger]

I'm with Bill, Jeff And the wife....

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDxJE-PU3SM

I like this one.....

..................there are just tons of fun steelehad videos out there.

[Ed Wahl]

Jed you are one cool S.O.B. You fired off one innocent little crack and almost got the ole steelhead forum livid for the first time this year.

Well done sir.

I've given up on several waters in the past because after fishing them I caught nothing, therefore the waters were devoid of fish.
Years ago the American not only had no steelies, but no stripers or salmon either. Good thing somebody fixed that.

You know what, I've got an excessive sense of humor. So much so that I'd be willing to sell off a bit here and there to certain posters on the steelhead forum so that they may be able to enjoy a joke now and again.

Little moolah for me, little piece of mind for them, this could be something big.

You sourpuss's just send me a note and we'll talk about priceing out a sense of humor for you. It's good stuff too. Sarcasm, whimsey, sophmoric, slapstick, getting jokes, all the stuff you seem to miss out on now.

Did you catch that? It was sarcasm. One low low price and you'll totally understand it.



You guys really do kill me.

Ed

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Too funny Ed....

Where is 'Oregon Salmon' when we need him?

[cyama]

That is a great quote Bill! "Leave your ego outside with your horse." Good stuff!

[weightforwardfilms]

Wow, to much tension. We all need to chill out a bit. Steelhead are in limited supply, but humor is not.

Having grown up in the Great Lakes chasing Steelhead, I know these fish well. Apparently, they are calling their freshwater only migration Potamodromous, as Blueracer stated earlier.
I would say that they are identical genetically, as their DNA is the same, and their life cycle is the same, except that they migrate within freshwater. The big difference, in my humble opinion, is that they never face the same challenges and dangers that real steelhead do. They are the apex predator in the Great Lakes, unlike in the Pacific. There are no sharks in open water, there is no gauntlet of seals waiting for them, just outside the river mouth. They are simply, a Rainbow Trout, that grows incredibly large and aggressive in a large body of freshwater. I'm still not sure if I consider them steelhead or not. Except when you hold a 12lb buck in your hands. For that brief period, they're undoubtably Steelhead.

But, they're not Pacific Steelhead, which face an arduous migration. For that reason, and for the fact that they're not native to the Great Lakes, makes me lean towards thinking of them as really bad-ass trout.

It took me many years of fishing here and there, to accept this.
Jeremy

[DAVID95670]

Seriously though, who cares where a fish comes from? This is kinda crazy, when I make one off colored remark in jest, it starts a whole "steelhead great lakes vs. pacific ocean" debate.

People, these fish are pretty great regardless of what body of water they come from! And there aren't that many of them, and they're hard as hell to catch. For these people that think I wasn't totally joking...well, you just need to lighten up.

If you can't have a sense of humor and you're a steelhead angler....man, you got big problems.

Jed, I agree with you. However these crazed arguments in this board have me convinced that there are more bloggers that simply hang out on their keyboards never fishing. I rarely see different people on the American river actually fishing. Yet there are these prolonged cerebral fornications on these topics ..... How about the good old half pounders? Seriously who cares?


Fyi I grew up in great lakes and their steelhead are enormous in comparison to pacific northwest

Whatever the hell they are, and we all acknowledged they were not true steelhead bc they do.t get to the ocean. Keyboard fishermen need to travel around maybe they might actuallyget out and catch a fish. Seems I never see these homer Simpson types posting photos of steelhead