Went up to Highlands, NC for the 5 year anny weekend with my wife and she was nice enough to let me do a guided fishing trip Saturday morning. Weather and conditions were very tough; it was raining hard the whole time and there were tons of leaves in the water which made the fishing almost impossible. My guide’s name was Gordon Vanderpool and did a great job to get me on 2 nice trout. We caught a nice 12" Rainbow in this beautiful 20" Steelhead. I’ve caught Brooks, Browns, Rainbows and it was great to get this big boy to round out the inshore catch. It was a great fight on the 5 weight and took quite a few minutes to get him to the net with the swift current and strong fish. Caught under strike indicator with small weight while fishing 2 nymphs tandem. Enjoy the pics…
22’Sea Hunt 200 yamaha
14’ jon boat - 2 paddles
El Cid '02
Farm Bureau Insurance
Summerville
Yea so i have never been fishing in Steelhead country but is there a difference between a steelhead in lets say ohio which is hellandgone from the coast and one in the Pacific Northwest? aren’t they both steelhead? Because the great lakes are fresh water so how does all that work? There is a older guy that I have talked to via email that has a rental cottage (near highlands where BigDaddy8 was)on big Snowbird and he says they got steelhead? I don’t know really anything about these fish but there has to be a distinction between salt running fish and not? Doesn’t there?
My guide told me that a Steelhead in NC is a rainbow that is a “Lake Run” rainbow not an original wild rainbow. It’s still a rainbow.
We were fishing SW of Franklin, NC. I did manage to catch about 200 Oak and Maple leaves too!
22’Sea Hunt 200 yamaha
14’ jon boat - 2 paddles
El Cid '02
Farm Bureau Insurance
Summerville
mountainguy, Pretty good guess there… we were fishing either Big Snowbird or Little Snowbird… can’t remember which exactly but it connects to the Lil Tennessee.
22’Sea Hunt 200 yamaha
14’ jon boat - 2 paddles
El Cid '02
Farm Bureau Insurance
Summerville
Alright… Steelhead refers to a species of trout, in the rainbow family that migrate to and from the ocean… They spawn in rivers and then move back out, just like salmon. Steelhead are native to the west and the only “true” steelhead reside there. The fish that inhabit the great lakes are a transplant fish from the west that were stocked into the great lakes tribs and migrate to and from the lakes to spawn much like their cousins out on the west coast. These fish are descendents but because they do not make it to salt water are technically not “steelhead”… they are however of the right species so I say they’re steelies.
The fish that are caught in NC are not any species or subspecies of the steelhead in either the west nor the great lakes. They are Rainbows… plain and simple. They will come up out of the lakes in WNC to spawn, but that act in itself does not constitute a fish being a steelhead. “Steelhead” refers to a different species of rainbow all together… not just the migration patterns. Big browns migrate in and out of those same lakes, and can get really big.
So like has already been stated, its a really nice rainbow… not a steelhead… but one hell of a rainbow!
Well done sir…
P.S- I was born and raised in WNC, and guided there for a while too… those boys call those fish steelhead, but most of em don’t know the difference, or don’t care…
thanks for the info Mad Mike. That was a fun and beautiful trout to catch and at least made me forget about how cold and wet I was for about 20 minutes!
22’Sea Hunt 200 yamaha
14’ jon boat - 2 paddles
El Cid '02
Farm Bureau Insurance
Summerville
Thank you mike, that is kinda what I have read in the past but the whole fresh water lake thing and the way magazines and people talk about chasing steel in NY and Michigan, ohio etc obviously makes for some confusion. I would like to hit the Snowbird for them lake runners though I hear Jan is a really good time, Like steelhead I guess the nastier the weather the better!
