To fish or not to fish? What a stupid question. Speaking of stupid questions, do you know the difference between a steelhead and a rainbow trout? Neither do I, and neither do you. Let me clarify.
I think the first thing that should be understood is that a steelhead is a nickname given to a rainbow trout based on a few factors. There is no genetic difference between the two, and they are scientifically Oncorhynchus mykiss. A geneticist would not be able to look at the DNA and be able to tell you that they are any different.
According to Bill McMillan of Steelheader’s Journal (https://www.steelheadersjournal.com/steelhead-namesake-school-of-hard-knocks/) The reason that steelhead got their name was because they were a less desirable or even trash fish compared to the chinook salmon, requiring more effort to kill when bonked over the head. Most anglers today probably assume that the name comes from their metallic chrome body and head when making their run from the ocean into the rivers. In either case, the rainbow trout coming up from Lake Michigan into the tributaries have a harder skull than a salmon and have a brilliant silvery-chrome appearance.
The rainbow trout that are stocked into Lake Michigan first came from the McCloud River in California. Today, the most prevalent strain of rainbows in the lake are Skamania, with original stocks coming from Washington’s Washougal and Klickitat Rivers. That means that the fish swimming in the great lakes are the direct descendants of Pacific steelhead.
So what is a steelhead? Dictionary.com simply states it is rainbow trout of a large migratory variety. If that’s the case, Great Lakes rainbow trout certainly would qualify to be called steelhead because they are large rainbow trout that migrate between the lake where they spend most of their lives and the rivers where they go to spawn. Wikipedia says a steelhead is the anadromous form of the coastal rainbow trout. The word anadromous really is the keyword in people defending Wikipedia’s definition.
Cue up some weird Al, because we’re gonna get White and Nerdy. Anadromous, according to dictionary.com, is defined as “(of a fish such as the salmon) migrating up rivers from the sea to spawn”. The third definition of the word sea on the same website is “a large lake.”
Wait a minute! Not all sources define anadromous so loosely. Vocabulary.com is one site that says that anadromous refers to species that migrate from their life in saltwater to spawn in freshwater. In that case, salmon and trout in the great lakes are not anadromous.
“No salt, no steel!” You’ll hear anglers from the PNW (that’s the Pacific Northwest in case you didn’t know) claim that if a rainbow trout never makes it to salt water then it can not be classified as a steelhead. This is an interesting point of view. If correct, a steelhead lays rainbow trout eggs and those rainbow trout fry turn into steelhead magically when they hit water at an undetermined amount of salinity.
Interestingly enough, perhaps the states surrounding the Great Lakes are even divided on what these fish should be called. If you want to find stocking data in Wisconsin you have to search for them by their common name, the rainbow trout. However, if you take a step across the northern border into Michigan and want to check their stocking numbers, you’d have to search for steelhead. I have heard fishery biologists use the term interchangeably over the course of the past couple decades.
If you go to the grocery store, you’ll see that steelhead are available for anywhere between $8.50 and $22.50 per pound. Certainly some of these farmed fish are raised entirely in a tank and never see the ocean, therefore never making a journey from ocean to tributary. This doesn’t necessarily mean I think that grocery stores are much of an authority on the matter. One 2018 study found that somewhere between 14 and 40 percent of fish found in markets are mislabeled for one reason or another. Furthermore, fish like the Patagonian toothfish have been renamed Chilean Sea Bass to sound more appealing to consumers. Maybe shoppers would rather have a steelhead than a rainbow trout?
Furthermore, Some fish have such a large range globally that they’ve been called different things regionally. Sander vitreus is known as a walleye to most of the world, but to some Manitobans, the traditional name “pickerel” still is widely used. Pickerel is a completely different group of fishes in the United States. Another species, Coryphaena hippurus, is called dorado in Latin America, dolphinfish in the Atlantic United States, and mahi-mahi in Hawaii. Dorado also happens to be a name given to a completely different fish in the Amazon River.
Finally, when seeing the abundant arguments online, inevitably you’ll come across someone calling Great Lakes fish “just a rainbow” as if there is some sort of superiority at play. Fish are fish. None are better than any other. In some places of the world, carp are a trophy fish, and in others people just throw them on the bank to kill them. In Lake Michigan, brown trout are highly prized but they’re invasive in Montana and Idaho. It certainly is weird though that some groups of fishermen give certain fish their own prized status based on which group of anglers they belong to. Maybe we should just appreciate that we’re all out trying to do one thing; convince a pea-brained animal to bite something that looks like their food so we can feel their head shake while we pull them from their house. It’s a fun time no matter how ya do it or what is on the other end.
Given all this information, I think I can confidently say that I really don’t care what you want to call the Oncorhynchus mykiss. I do, however, think it’s a bit goofy if you judge someone for calling it something other than what you want it to be called. If your pride can’t handle someone calling a fish by its nickname maybe you are just a little overly sensitive. In the end, when talking amongst friends, I know that when you say “greenhead” you just shot a drake mallard, when you say “hammer handle” you’re referring to a small northern pike, and when you say “steelhead” you are talking about a rainbow trout. Fish on, my friends!
