A temperature gauge is the most important tool in your vest. Want to catch steelhead consistently? Monitor water temperature. It strongly suggests where they are, when to use lures, when to use bait, when to go high, when to go low, and when to fish for something else. And it’s more important now than ever.
When snow begins to blanket the banks, presentations that deploy bait, beads, or plastics take center stage as the metabolism of cold-blooded steelhead slows down.
Old timer comes stomping down the trail. He stops where we’re sitting on a fallen tree, eating lunch. “There’s no fish here,” he complained. “I can’t believe it.” He lifts his rod and shows us an orange-gold Flatfish pinned to the hook arbor. “This never fails. In 30 years, this has never failed. There’s no fish. I’m done.” And he stormed off.
Mary and I looked at each other and smiled. It was only noon and we’d banked a dozen. Obviously, steelhead were in the river. He just wasn’t using the right technique. Like so many steelheaders, he’s a one-trick pony, and his one trick is best adapted to certain conditions.
One of those conditions is water temperature. Looking through my archives and byline lists recently, covering hundreds of articles, I was amazed to discover I’ve never written an entire piece about water temperature and steelhead.
A temperature gauge is the most important tool in your vest. Want to catch steelhead consistently? Monitor water temperature. It strongly suggests where they are, when to use lures, when to use bait, when to go high, when to go low, and when to fish for something else. And it’s more important now than ever.
We’re entering a “brave new world” that doesn’t favor salmonid species. In the summer of 2021, salmon were literally baked to death by temperatures unheard of in the Columbia River bordering Oregon and Washington states. Underwater videos showed us salmon dead on the bottom with others severely scarred, trying to complete their mission in life with open lesions on their flanks and white fungus on their backs with hundreds of miles between them and spawning sites, in some instances. All-time record high temperatures of over 120°F were recorded for the first time there and in British Columbia. Western states experienced record wildfires. Entire towns were burned to the ground.
Summer steelhead trying to enter Great Lakes streams reading over 72°F turned belly up and drifted back toward big water. Some survive. Some don’t. The changes in our climate are happening faster than ever, forcing steelhead to move later in fall, earlier in spring.
A temperature gauge not only tells you when to find something else to do or when to crack on, but reveals what stage a run is in, where steelhead might be, how they use a pool, and how active they are.
In cold water—under 38°F—spawn bags on light jigs are hard to beat. Jigs anchor a bait in the flow, putting it right on the nose of steelhead that become increasingly reluctant to chase as temperatures drop.
Fall Steelhead
One critical aspect of fall steelhead in the Great Lakes is their lack of urgency. Steelhead won’t spawn for months. They run in fall because of genetics and passion. Urgency, for fall-run fish, arrives when eggs are ripe and milt is dripping from males somewhere between late winter and early spring. Most steelhead enter Great Lakes streams in fall when rain events draw them in. But the run can be curtailed by high temperatures. Fall runs happen when water temperatures read less than 70°F—a thermal barrier. Steelhead cannot persist long in temperatures exceeding 70°F.
Water temperatures in the 50°F range or lower are ideal. A rain event occurring in that range is optimum. That’s when we find steelhead running in September all around the Great Lakes. But for the past few years, summer lingers longer than usual. If water temperatures read 70°F or more, go home and mow the lawn. Go bass fishing. Even if steelhead are in the river, nosing up to springs and the mouths of freshets, the stress of battling it out can kill them—and maybe not right away, but hours after being released.
The 60°F range is like, meh. Good catches can happen but it’s unusual. Some steelhead might run after a rain event, but typically few. The peak comes later. If present, steelhead enjoy fast, skinny water, necks, chutes, or the edge of obstructions where current speeds up. From this point until temperatures drop into the mid 40°F range, lures tend to trigger the most strikes. Yakima Mag Lip and Luhr Jensen Kwikfish in 3- to 4-inch sizes—sometimes bigger—are deadly in early fall. Steelhead chase things and respond to aggressive techniques. The wide-wobbling action of a “banana bait” drives them nuts.
When water temperatures drop into the low 50°F range, expect to find more silver. Steelies are rambunctious tigers, often running way upstream in average to high water levels. Class 5 rapids are not a hindrance. Look for them in the tailraces of dams and pools below waterfalls. Where similar barriers don’t exist, head way upstream to open the hunt. Work fast water. Cover it fast with spoons, spinners, or banana baits and keep on truckin’. Fish are scattered, so cover miles of river in a day.
Steelhead have a similar response to the environment until temperatures descend into the mid 40°F range. At that point, they begin using faster water less and less. As temperatures drop, steelhead may begin backing downstream to deeper pools, especially when water levels decline. According to our logs, this is where we begin to see steelhead increasingly responding better to beads and spawn. Metabolisms are slowing. Life in the pools is slower. And slower, more subtle techniques begin to prevail.
It’s not that banana baits, or spoons like the Bully or Ridge/Back by Williams and spinners won’t catch steelhead in cold water, or that spawn and beads won’t work in warmer water. Observations over the past 50 years reveal I’m more likely to have a 10-fish or better day using lures in warmer water and beads or bait in colder water. It may not work that way for you, but it’s food for thought.
Steelhead may use any portion of a pool in the low 40°F to upper 30°F range. In recent years, we find them in tailouts most often, but never overlook the head or side of the pool toward the inside of a bend. The point where bottom disappears from view is the place to start making drifts. It might be only 2 or 3 feet deep, but steelhead—having been pursued by birds and critters as parr—instinctively know where they become invisible from above. Steelhead begin to prefer the slowest possible currents. Making first casts to mid pool or beyond will “line” those fish.
A temperature gauge not only tells you when to find something else to do or when to crack on, but reveals what stage a run is in, where steelhead might be, how they use a pool, and how active they are.
When float fishing in this range of temperatures, I often drift spawn on a VooDoo Tackle jig (716) 998-7993 or Lazy Larry’s EZ System beads. Lazy Larry’s beads are slotted, allowing you to change beads without cutting off the hook and shortening your leader with another knot. If a color pattern hasn’t developed yet, Lazy Larry’s beads are the most efficient way to experiment.
Winter Steelhead
Steelhead seasons don’t match ours. We call it autumn when the equinox occurs around the third week of September. Steelhead call it fall when water temperature and day length tell them. A full moon influences fall runs, too. And what we call autumn is sometimes the beginning of winter for lake-run rainbows.
For more than 20 years 8 of us gathered for our annual Steelhead Camp the week before Thanksgiving. Almost every year we left Minnesota to join our friends on Michigan’s Pere Marquette in a blizzard. It was typical to find the banks of our favorite rivers blanketed with snow. Seeing that, we knew water temperatures would be in the 30°F range. So, while still technically fall for us, it was winter for steelhead.
Having lived in Michigan for over 30 years—not far from the Pere Marquette—I can attest to the fact that having snow on her banks by late November was common. That’s no longer the case.
While we still see snow around Thanksgiving at times, it’s more likely days will be in the 40°F, 50°F or even the 60°F range. Climatologically speaking, that’s rapid change. Steelhead have had to adapt.
“Banana baits,” like Yakima Mag Lip and Luhr Jensen Kwikfish, are anointed by warmer water in the 45°F to 60°F range. Banana baits do trigger strikes in colder water, but slower, more subtle techniques tend to bring more steelhead to the net.
Fall-run steelhead continue running into rivers in the upper 30°F range when water levels increase, usually staying in the deeper pools of the lower end. A big snow event can super chill the water right down to 32°F in a hurry. When air temperatures dip down near or below 0°F, I’ve taken readings of 31°F—below the freezing point of water. The surface of the river will be covered with ice floes, and big shelves of hard water form on slow water. Steelhead tend to drop down into “frog water” in the lower segments of rivers, though sometimes they get “trapped” in deeper or wider pools upstream.
We’ve had some of our best days in those conditions. For one thing, anglers tend to stay home. For another thing, the environment narrows a steelhead’s options for location. Big numbers crowd together in very predictable positions when water temperatures read in the low 30°F range. They seek current voids or the slowest mov-ing water possible, eliminating vast tracts of river. Though steelhead can be caught in the deepest part or at the head of a pool at times, it’s far more common to find them in the tailout, where water rises as the bottom rises. Behind that rising water is a “void,” usually in about 3 feet of water, sometimes a little deeper.
That 3-foot zone is key. In water this cold, steelhead want to feel a little sun on their backs. Pools only 3 to 4 feet deep in a low-gradient area that widen out on a straight stretch of river are optimum spots. The low gradient slows the current, and where the river widens it slows even further. This is where presentations involving spawn bags (tied with brown trout or steelhead eggs at this point) really shine. Beads work, too—often just as well. But my partner, who always prefers spawn, tends to out fish me in these conditions when I opt for beads.
Water should be covered incrementally in the low 30°F range—short casts first, long casts last, with each ensuing cast a few inches longer than the previous one. Where steelhead will chase aggressive lures 20 feet or farther in 50°F water, they may not move 3 inches to intercept a subtle bait or bead in 34°F water. The presentation has to glide right toward their nose before that mouth will open in most cases.
Spawn bags can be presented on bottom or under a float. I like to insert two or three Red Wing Tackle float beads in the bags when using a split-shot rig on bottom. Steelhead will pick a spawn bag up off bottom in most conditions, but having it a few inches up is more productive in extremely cold water. Under a float, small 1/64- to 1/32-ounce jigs keep the bait from waving around, keeping it on track to zero in on a steelhead’s snout.
As my friends at Indigo Guide Service (231/613-5099) showed me years ago, beads can be presented on bottom-drifting rigs, too. But the steelhead’s same reluctance to move applies. When the water reads 35°F or less, best to use floats and Hevi Beads (509/910-2348) that sink fast. Hevi Beads anchor in the flow, more like a jig, without wafting around as much as other beads.
Spring Steelhead
It was late March. Fly fishermen were hooking lots of steelhead on beds one day, but air temperatures dropped to 11°F that night. Water temperatures dipped from 42°F to 32°F. At dawn I walked past dozens of fly fishermen standing in the riffles, looking for fish that were long gone.
The author has used this White River Fly Shops Stream Thermometer for decades, preferring mercury over digital. Many companies make them, including Orvis, MaxCatch, and FishPond. The heavy mono is looped on the end for hanging on branches over the water while fishing.
When temperatures plummet that dramatically overnight, steelhead aren’t going to hang around in that fast water. I crossed the river to a slow, wide, deep pool below the riffles. A snow squall hid me from view.
Snow was collecting on my rod blank as I made slow, tedious drifts on bottom. I felt a take and set the hook. Nothing. My leader had snapped. I tied on another hook, made the same drift, felt a take and my leader snapped again. I tested it and it snapped with very little pressure. Line that worked fine yesterday had become brittle in the cold! I tied on a 4-pound Maxima Ultragreen leader, made the same drift, felt a take and hooked up. The 8-pound female I brought to the bank had three lines sticking out of her mouth—all of them mine.
I rested the pool for 10 minutes, made another drift and hooked up again. I repeated the process and hooked up again. And again. And again. Virtually all of the fish that were on beds up above the day before were packed into that pool. Why? In plummeting water temperatures, steelhead all move down, not upstream. They will only go as far as they have to. Upon finding optimum conditions in that pool, they all stayed right there, in perfect wintering habitat.
Water temperature, not time of year, determines what season it is for steelhead. In fact, it determines a lot about steelhead behavior. Not everything. In February, fall-run steelhead in Great Lakes rivers often spawn in water temperatures of 36°F to 38°F. Based on everything discussed so far, that temperature would indicate fish should be in pools, not riffles. But at this point, urgency sets in. As days lengthen, the genetic impulse to reproduce strengthens.
Spring-run fish staging at the mouths of rivers, feeling those cold flows coming out, hesitate. They tend to spawn in temperatures of 40°F or higher. Some years in February and early March, the fall-run fish have spawned and evacuated before the spring run begins. It used to puzzle us. We were hooking up many times per day and suddenly, overnight, the steelhead were gone. Not until we saw females turning up on their sides in riffles in February did we realize steelhead would spawn in water that cold.
Spring runs can be fast and furious. Steelhead come flocking in when water temperatures hit 40°F and head right for the riffles where they were born, if the stream has natural reproduction. Some of them trickle in and hold in pools when the water is colder than that. Those steelhead are just as susceptible to float-fishing tactics as wintering fish. But the run typically peaks when the water hits 41°F or higher. The best way to take spawning fish is with a fly rod and bright streamers you can see drifting past their faces, but we never bother spawners in streams with natural reproduction.
Water temperature doesn’t determine everything about steelhead behavior or location. Water levels, time of year, water clarity, fishing pressure, weather, moon phases, day length, and other factors all play a part. Even so, working steelhead rivers without a temperature gauge is like fishing naked.
GET A FREE HAT AND SHIRT WITH A LAMIGLAS WALLEYE ROD:
MORE GREAT ARTICLES FROM AMATO MEDIA
2 comments
I agree one of the best articles I’ve read
Regarding Temps .
This is one if the best article’s I’ve read when it come to Great Lakes Steelhead. I truly believe temp is the name of the game and this article explains how subtle changes to us, make a huge difference to these fish. Thank you for this article it’s gonna help my game for sure