Many miles are trod alone, in search of winter steel. Who will accompany the mad? Who will go a-wading when the snow flies horizontally, to watch immobile fingers invent a new shade of purple with feet reporting all the sensation of a pair of cinder blocks?
But that’s the whole point. Returning to a favorite spot on a steelhead stream to find the only footprints in the snow are yours, from two weeks prior, is what it’s all about. Finding solitude during the height of the fall and spring runs can be next to impossible. In winter, solitude can be the rule.
The keys to winter steelheading begin with proper attire. Being properly dressed allows for full concentration and patience. Location and presentation are priorities, as always, but without some degree of comfort, and without patience, it serves but little to know where the fish are and how to approach them.
Concentration is critical, because the angling becomes extremely methodical. When the water is 33°F and the wind chill feels lethal, the most important tool resides between your ears, not in a fishing log, magazine, or steelhead vest.
Location
Steelhead are more aggressive in 33°F water than are all but a few other freshwater species, and this aggression applies to migration and movement as much as it does to feeding. Yet, steelhead do seek shelter from the cold. The key thing to remember about winter steelhead is that more than 80 percent of them are fall-run fish, in the Great Lakes region. In a cold winter with no appreciable thaw, that figure jumps to 100 percent. It’s an important distinction because fall-run fish tend to spawn much earlier than spring-run fish.
We now have evidence that fall-run fish spawn somewhere between mid-February and early March in most systems, depending on conditions. But, even if midwinter thaws fail to occur and the water never warms until late March, fall-run steelhead have been observed spawning in water registering less than 36°F. This suggests that they attempt to spawn during a “day-length window” nature has installed in their makeup, regardless of temperature (since rainbows the world over tend to spawn in temperatures of 40°F or more in most cases). When that window appears, all the “rules” I’m about to suggest go out the window and steelhead move, incredibly, into riffles and fast water.
Until that spawning window opens, winter steelhead increasingly settle into slower water after the water dips below 40°F. They tend to be a lot more rambunctious in 40°F water than in 38°F water. It is far more likely to come across steelhead in a quick run on a steep grade at 40°F than at 38°F. When the temperature just begins to drop into the 30°F range, they back away from the heads and edges of pools to settle into the slower water astride an eddy or deeper into the midsection.
If the air temperature drops below 10°F for a time, steelhead move to pools suited for winter habitation, if possible. Even though water temperatures cannot dip below about 31°F in current, air temperatures below 0°F have a stark effect on steelhead behavior. The bottom of the stream may freeze, producing what is commonly called “anchor ice.” Though the actual water temperature has only dipped by a degree or two, studies reveal that steelhead suffer much more stress during spells of 0°F weather than they do when the air is over 20°F for a long time.
