Steelhead

Where to go

Steelhead lake by lake

Ranked by how good the fishing actually is, not alphabetically. If a lake is not on this list, it is because the fish is not worth targeting there.

1. 01

   Lake Michigan

   Lake Michigan is the best all-around steelhead lake in the country because it gives you two completely different fisheries: an offshore summer bite in the top 40 feet of open water, and a nine-month tributary season on rivers like the Big Manistee and the Muskegon. Neither one requires you to compete for the same water.

   Prime time: June through August offshore; October through April in the tributaries, peaking in March · Depths: 5–40 ft down over 80–400 ft of water offshore; 3–10 ft in the rivers

   Full guide
2. 02

   Lake Ontario

   Lake Ontario steelhead run bigger than most of the chain and they have somewhere to go: the Salmon River at Pulaski is a genuine tailwater with scheduled flows and fish in it from October through April. The lake fishery is real too, in the top 30 feet from June through August.

   Prime time: October through April in the tributaries, peaking December and again in late March; June through August offshore · Depths: 3–12 ft in the rivers; 5–35 ft down over deep water offshore

   Full guide
3. 03

   Lake Erie

   Steelhead Alley is the highest-density steelhead run in North America and it happens in creeks you can throw a rock across. From Vermilion, Ohio to Cattaraugus Creek in New York, roughly a hundred miles of shale-bottom tributary fills with fish every fall, and access is public across most of it.

   Prime time: Late October through April, with the heaviest push after the first cold rains in November and a strong March run · Depths: 2–8 ft in the creeks; 10–30 ft off the mouths in early fall

   Full guide
4. 04

   Lake Superior

   Superior steelhead are mostly wild, mostly small, and fished in some of the most beautiful water in North America. The Minnesota North Shore rivers and Wisconsin's Bois Brule carry a short, intense spring run, and the Michigan streams east of Marquette add a fall fishery worth planning a weekend around.

   Prime time: April and May on the North Shore; September through November on the Michigan and Wisconsin streams · Depths: 2–6 ft in the streams; 5–20 ft off the mouths

   Full guide
5. 05

   Lake Huron

   Steelhead are the Pacific species that did best out of Lake Huron's alewife collapse, because they eat almost anything and did not depend on a single baitfish. The Au Sable, Rifle and Saginaw Bay tributaries carry solid runs, and the summer offshore surface bite off Oscoda and Harbor Beach is underfished.

   Prime time: October through April in the tributaries, peaking in March; June through August offshore · Depths: 3–10 ft in the rivers; 5–35 ft down over 80–300 ft offshore

   Full guide