The river and its environs were cloaked in a white shawl. Ankle-deep snow buried the trail, making it hard to find in the dusky light before dawn. As the sun first winked at the river through the naked trees, a clear-plastic float was being abruptly ripped beneath the surface.

The morning produced 13 steelhead, mostly to the dripping litany of a late-winter thaw. Things began to warm incredibly fast. The river rose so quickly I was almost trapped on the wrong side, and certainly would have been had I waited another half hour.

The first 10 fish were crimson-banded, hook-jawed males, which are the rule in deep winter. As the urge to spawn strikes wintering steelhead, more females begin to arrive from staging haunts in lakes and estuaries. The last 3 fish of the morning were chrome-sided hens. By late afternoon, an afternoon which produced no steelhead, the ankle-deep snow survived only on the shaded north face of the hills, and the air temperature had climbed to over 70°F. The river was up and cloudy. Despite the 34°F water, steelhead were on the move, dissolving like the melting snow, morphing into ghosts in the limbo between life stages. It was a highly accelerated version of a transition that takes place every year, the fish all spawning and leaving the river within 48 hours.

Midwinter Transitions

Most anglers in the Great Lakes region know that winter steelhead are really summer- or fall-run fish that “winter over” in the river. These fish take on the coloration of stream rainbows, then begin to get even darker, sometimes turning coal black. When fish with color can’t be found in February, especially in a river that received a heavy fall run of steelhead, chances are quite high those fish are spawning or have finished spawning and left the river. Fall-run steelhead can spawn in water temperatures of 36°F or less. Because most steelheaders concentrate on the spring run, they tend to believe their biology books, which tell us that rainbows and steelhead (taxonomically identical, down to the last chromosome) tend to spawn most heavily in water temperatures of 40°F to 42°F. Which is true, for rainbows and steelhead in spring.

Fall-run fish don’t read biology texts. They can leave pools they inhabited for months and begin to stage near spawning habitat in 34°F water, covering their tracks along the way. When that wintering pool suddenly empties, even though the sky is spitting snow, chances are good that the weather is due to warm, and the sun is going to come out for long periods of time. Don’t ask how or why, but steelhead can predict local weather better than most meteorologists.

To find wintering fish, refer to last winter’s article (In-Fisherman February ’07), which discusses the makeup of wintering pools. Wintering pools tend to be dish-shaped and relatively shallow, or fairly deep containing current voids, or very slow currents. When steelhead leave these spots, time is of the essence. You have two weeks, tops. Late-winter steelhead can move into 33°F currents and reposition. The search then centers on deep runs, dish-shaped pools, pockets where current voids exist with broken water on top, and other areas with cover directly below spawning habitat. The key becomes finding the right spawning riffle, one of many quick, shallow gravel shoals in the river. Fall-run steelhead often spawn in the deeper pockets, grooves, and runs within and below these riffles.

Just because a fall-run steelhead chooses to winter in a pool, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will spawn in the next riffle upstream, though that seems to be the case much of the time. Steelhead can migrate fairly long distances at this point in the season, and a thaw or patch of sunny weather can prompt them to move. Movements and spawning activity both tend to occur during the day, the periods of highest activity often occurring between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on cloudy days and during low-light periods on bright days.

Hunt for spawning riffles but don’t fish there unless the stream has no natural reproduction. I don’t fish for spawning steelhead in streams with fair-to-high natural recruitment, even if the law allows it. Laws seldom consider trends or the foreseeable future, while climatologists worldwide currently predict weather patterns in coming decades that could spell big trouble for steelhead and salmon. Streams have been running at dangerously low levels the past few years in many areas of the country where steelhead parr and smolts have faced warmer water and lower-than-normal oxygen counts in summer and fall. Finding a spawning riffle simply directs my next phase of the search to the water within 500 yards or so downstream.

It can be difficult to spot winter spawners. The fall-run female chooses water slightly deeper than the females that follow her in spring. The water over the nest site is typically rolling and broken up. Seeing a take requires the eyes of an osprey. And, finally, few fish seem to be spawning at any one time in late winter unless conditions are quite a bit warmer than normal. Staging fish tend to be more numerous almost to the point where the fall run vanishes, leaving the river altogether. They spawn and leave like ghosts.

The toughest thing about finding transition steelhead is overcoming your own preconceptions about where the fish should be. Winter steelhead want slow, deep, even-flowing, comfortable water. And though water temperatures may not warm up much, transition steelhead begin to hold in relatively shallow, fast, turbulent water.

Because the fish are tough to see, and because each year brings a different group of steelhead into the river, with different needs, different origins (research indicates that steelhead and salmon often spawn on the same riffle they were born under), yet with the common need of near-wintering habitat for staging, finding the right spawning riffle can be tricky. The fact that wintering steelhead are found in a pool is no guarantee you’ll find them in that pool next year. Which points to a need: Cover water.

Staging Steel

Steel for steel is never a bad idea in late winter. Small casting spoons and spinners not only cover water fast, they can be curiously effective for steelhead in 32°F to 36°F water. Metal also stirs up steelhead, so even the ones that won’t fall for metal bite better for a buddy fishing along behind you (might be best to take turns). At a younger age, I hated to see spinner fishermen coming my way during winter. They covered pools faster than I wanted to move, and often fished through the pool while I was fishing it (I have it on good authority they learned this at Michigan State). But it didn’t take long to realize that my catch ratio increased drastically during the half-hour or so after a spinner fisherman breezed through, and they have been welcomed with open arms ever since.

Steelhead do respond to the flash and thump of metal in cold water when they won’t respond to flies or bait, however. After fishing through a pool with bait one late January day, I skirted an ice shelf, made my way up the bank, and began to leave, when I heard a tiny disturbance among the normal sounds of the flow. I turned to see big rings widening across the pool. I slipped back into the river, around the ice shelf, and flipped a blue-silver 1/6-ounce Little Cleo to the far bank. I held the rod low and let the spoon swing through the water where the fish broached. The little spoon was crushed by a 10-pound hen, which came reluctantly to the ice-laden bank.

Depending on the river, its size and strength of flow, spoons and spinners in the 1/6- to 1/2-ounce range are required in most midwestern rivers, while heavier baits work better in most western streams. Many highly adept spinner jockeys demand that a specific blade size be used for steelhead in winter (generally they agree that larger size #4 and #5 blades are better), no matter the size, depth, or level of the river. They then match the weight of the spinner’s body to the flow to achieve the proper “swing.” For me, the perfect swing is more important, and I don’t care if I’m using a size #1 blade or a size #5, so I try everything until I believe the spinner is gliding along just above bottom when allowed to swing. Cast across the current (short casts first), hold the rod down, and the current grabs more line. If the lure doesn’t touch bottom, hold the rod a little higher and try again.

Holding the rod tip high allows the bait to sink deeper, a good tactic when making long casts over deep pools. A moderately long rod of 81⁄2 to 10 feet provides better control of the line and, ultimately, the depth of the swing. Keep changing the weight of the package by changing the size of the spoon or spinner, to match the flow perfectly. Monofilament catches more current than braided line, keeping metal baits higher in the water column. Choose clear or green-tinted 6- to 10-pound monofilament. Make it something tough, like Maxima Ultragreen or Ande Premium. But 10- to 30-pound Berkley FireLine casts farther on large rivers, and allows a metal bait to plunge deeper into those “bottomless” pools. Either way, tie the main line directly to a small SPRO snap swivel, making it easy to change lures and adjust for depth.

Float-fishing with long rods (12 to 14 feet), light, sensitive floats, fluorocarbon leaders, and light jigs produces more fish than metal most days, especially when coupled with fresh bait. When the size and color of the package are right, the package presented properly, and the bait prime, nothing can outfish a float rig. Jigs work better in cold water because steelhead won’t move far to take bait. They might run 10 feet or more to hit a spinner, but more fish take fresh bait, over the course of the day, when it’s placed right on their nose. A jig delivers it there. Nobody really knows where a bare hook is going, half the time. It could be to the left of the float as easily as it could be off to the right, which is fine in cool-to-warm water. In cold water, it pays to know precisely where the bait is.

Incremental changes in jig size often become critical. Last winter my partner caught the first 5 crimson-banded brutes from a pool thick with steelhead. Comparing our rigs, I found them to be identical right down to the color, but her jig weighed 1/16 ounce, while mine was a 1/32. I tied on a new jig and the float traveled less than 10 feet on the next drift before jetting under. After 10 more drifts, we both had 5 fish for the morning. I want to use the lightest jig I can get away with, and sometimes this prejudice works against me. Heavier jigs keep the bait down in the strike zone and keep the bait from sidling off-track in cross currents. With a slightly heavier jig, depth is affected less when mending line. Suddenly I’m using more 1/8- and 1/4-ounce jigs in winter.

Slow the float down more in winter, even when fishing below spawning riffles. Cast across the current and keep the line upstream of the float and off the water as much as possible. Hold the float up more. Make it pause. In winter, my lead length between float and jig is often longer than the depth of the river where I’m fishing, because I pause the bait so often. If the jig-and-bait hangs in their faces longer, they tend to bite more often. Just letting the float drift at current speed seldom works better. The jig-and-bait should be drifting ahead of (downstream of) the float and rigging, and the float should be moving slower than the surrounding current. The current is faster near the surface than it is near bottom, and you want the bait moving slower than the current surrounding it, too.

Water levels tend to be low in winter, and clarity tends to be high. Use an 8-pound floating line like Raven Mono or Siglon F when float-fishing, for easier mending, and terminate the rig with a quality 6-pound fluorocarbon, like Raven, Maxima, or Red Wing. The key elements involved in tricking low, coldwater steel involve lighter line, brightly-colored baits in small packages (stir them up, but don’t offer more than they can swallow), dull colors in slightly larger packages, or the flash and thump of metal baits. A 3-inch finesse-style worm in red, orange, white, pink, or natural is a good substitute for salmon eggs. Nose-hook it and let it dangle. Small baits and plastics generally work best, while metal lures should be larger-than-usual, in an odd reversal of the status quo.

No matter which method you choose, patience is required to angle for ghosts. When winter steelhead pale into phantoms in transition, develop a game plan to cover the right water quickly and systematically.