Pet Peeve: Great Lakes “Steelhead”
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So the “Steelhead” in the great lakes are not actually steelhead, steelhead are rainbow trout untill they go to saltwater and they do not attain steelhead status untill they taste the salt.
While I understand where your coming from its never bothered me.Not sure butI think it just rolls off the tongue easier. Potato/Patato
Esox masquinongy Also known as
Musky, Lunge, MuskellungeStizostedion vitreum
Commonly referred to as Walleye.
also known as
Blue pike, dore, dory, glass-eye, gray pike, green pike, jack, jackfish, jack salmon, marble-eye, pickerel, pike, pike-perch, sauger, Susquchanna salmon, walleyed perch, walleyed pickerel, walleyed pike, white eye, yellow pickerel, yellow pike perchSalvelinus fontinalis
Commonly referred to as Brook Trout
Also known asThere is a slight difference in the Rainbows that make runs up the rivers from the great lakes and the ones found year round in the rivers, mainly the size they reach and their migratory behavior. Similiar to the rainbows that run out to the ocean on your side. Is it “tasting salt” or is it their migratory behavior that makes them steelhead? I think you are right technically about anadromy being the key though. By the way, the steelhead caught here in MI are not all hatchery fish. ;D
This debate is boring.
Why dont you post this on the drake, where you’ve been welcomed so warmly, and see what they have to say about it.
Every single time someone posts something about Great Lakes steelhead, there is always someone that chimes in with the argument you just presented. So, I guess I will step up to the plate for my fellow Great Lakes steelheaders. To start with let’s ask ourselves a hypothetical question, are we not all homo sapiens? Yet there are characteristics that cause us to have different traits. Yet we are still the same thing. If I move to let’s say Germany, I’m still an American. All that has been done is that I have been transplanted to a different location. This is identical to what has happen with the steelhead. Steelhead were first identified in the late 1700s. So obvious there were none in the Great Lakes at the time, so they characterized the fish by having a life cycle that includes an anadromous stage. Move up in time some decades and we see steelhead from the McCloud River are being sent to various states in the Great Lakes region. So we have steelhead taking by train and placed in the Great Lakes. So along the way was there a fisheries biologist that told each fish they are just now a lake run rainbow. Nope, but would have been funny. So what do the fish do once they get to the Great Lakes, they display the same behavior they did out west by spawning in the creeks and rivers and running down to the lakes. So we have identical behavior just no salt. Sounds like the same thing to me so far, just sodium free.
If you really want to get into more I got a couple of interesting points to bring up since you brought up the browns. To start what about the species of salmon found in the Great Lakes. Should they all be called lake runs now? All the west coasts guys never bring up this point and I find it very interesting. We have chinook, cohos, and pink salmon in the Great Lakes along with Atlantic salmon, yet they are never brought up in this debate. I have never fully understood that. You’re so passionate about steelhead, yet you overlook several other species in your argument. Getting back to steelhead, they are supposed to be found only in the Pacific Ocean if you go according to the books. However, what do you know we have them in the Atlantic down in Argentina? So does that mean they are not steelhead since they are not from the Pacific Ocean, nope, don’t think so I haven’t heard any problems with this issue either.
So all steelhead are rainbows but not all migratory rainbows are steelhead so its not just a common name thing.
Every single time someone posts something about Great Lakes steelhead, there is always someone that chimes in with the argument you just presented. So, I guess I will step up to the plate for my fellow Great Lakes steelheaders. To start with let’s ask ourselves a hypothetical question, are we not all homo sapiens? Yet there are characteristics that cause us to have different traits. Yet we are still the same thing. If I move to let’s say Germany, I’m still an American. All that has been done is that I have been transplanted to a different location. This is identical to what has happen with the steelhead. Steelhead were first identified in the late 1700s. So obvious there were none in the Great Lakes at the time, so they characterized the fish by having a life cycle that includes an anadromous stage. Move up in time some decades and we see steelhead from the McCloud River are being sent to various states in the Great Lakes region. So we have steelhead taking by train and placed in the Great Lakes. So along the way was there a fisheries biologist that told each fish they are just now a lake run rainbow. Nope, but would have been funny. So what do the fish do once they get to the Great Lakes, they display the same behavior they did out west by spawning in the creeks and rivers and running down to the lakes. So we have identical behavior just no salt. Sounds like the same thing to me so far, just sodium free.
But what I’m saying is that you can and do have behavior identical to great lakes “steelhead” throughout the rainbow trouts native range and these fish are not called steelhead, the defining charicterist of steelhead is that they enter saltwater.
what I’m saying is that you can and do have behavior identical to great lakes “steelhead” throughout the rainbow trouts native range and these fish are not called steelhead, the defining charicterist of steelhead is that they enter saltwater.
If were going to get anal and technical, then the opertative word is Anadromous which applies to all fishes that live mostly in salt and return to fresh to breed.
A)diadromous fish travel between salt and fresh water. (Greek: ‘Dia’ is between) There are three types of diadromous fish:
B)anadromous fish live in the sea mostly, breed in fresh water (Greek: ‘Ana’ is up; The noun is “anadromy”)
C)catadromous fish live in fresh water, breed in the sea (Greek: ‘Cata’ is down)
D)amphidromous fish move between fresh and salt water during some part of life cycle, but not for breeding (Greek: ‘Amphi’ is both)
E)potamodromous fish migrate within fresh water only. (Greek: ‘Potamos’ is river)
F)oceanodromous fish migrate within salt water only. (Greek: ‘Oceanos’ is ocean)
So the arguement about Chinooks, Pinks, Coho, Atlantics, et al is pertinent as the same the applies to them. Rainbow/Steelhead are not unique…its not a defining characteristic of the species, its a difference given their geological location.
Bottom line.
They are the same species, yes?If so
The only thing that “separates” a rainbow from a Steelhead is their geopgraphy vis a vie tribs that spill into oceans vs tribs that spill in lakes. Yes?
If so
For example Kings are also called chinook, tyee, spring, blackmouth, etc. However with all of these common names there is no defining characteristic beyond local jargon to
Seems to me like little more than yet another example of local jargon, where west coasters call them Steelehad and inlanders are ‘supposed” call them rainbow. Yet for some bizarre reason west coasters get their knickers in a knot over crossover in names unlike with Kings/Coho/Atlantics???
the *species* is not different, only the geography.
What about the Brook Trout that are anadromous vs those that are potamodrous which some call coasters? Again same species, the only thing that separates them is the name given and used most frequently by the locals.
Incidentally I did find some obscure reference to “rainbow trout” being reserved only for rainbows thats live their entire lives in rivers vs “lake run” rainbows/steelhead.
Maybe a 3rd name should be in order. That way, we can all have a name to call our own which is dependant on our geographcial location?
Would Coaster Steel offend the west coast people?
Patrick.
1 more thought on this.I’m sure somewhere on the Westcoast there exist places where it would be possible to catch a “Steelhead” and a landlocked “rainbow”.
In my region my daily limit is 1.
Now lets suppose in the morning I caught a “steelhead” on some trib and put it in the cooler, then in the afternoon I caught a “rainbow” on a lake and likewise put that in the cooler . Then subsquently had my cooler searched by a CO?
Think Id get very far with a judge when I stated my case…”But your honour I clearly had 1 Steelhead and 1 Rainbow……”
A rose by any other name is still a rose.
That some steelhead “taste salt” and some don’t is a product of their geographical location and nothing else. Which came first the chicken (steelhead) or the egg (rainbow)?
I am not going to moderate or cut this debate off, but I will offer my opinion about it:
Semantic linguistic debates about common names for fish are ridiculous.
Silly debate… but are there sub species within this species? I do not know but it is probably the case. I know more about trees and when I do a landscape design with my wide we hear this mess all the time. “I want an Acer palmatum, (Japanese maple).” 100’s of cultivars so we have to break out the books or ask better questions.
Is a Cutthroat a Cut? Oncorhynchus clarki
Kevin –
Eventually, yes, the Great Lakes steelhead will become a different subspecies, so long as they can reproduce in their new water.
I would never claim that the steelhead in the great lakes are not steelhead, but when they dont travel hundreds of miles to spawn and face the hardships of the salt, they arent nearly as special.
Once you cram thousands of [mostly] hatchery fish into a stream or small rivers
Mike, you’re right about the mystic factor.
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