Steelhead Fishing on Lake Michigan

Two fisheries, one fish

A steelhead is a rainbow trout that lives in the lake and runs the rivers to spawn. On Lake Michigan that produces two separate sports that share nothing but the species.

The offshore fishery happens in June, July and August, well out in open water, and it is unlike anything else in Great Lakes trolling. Steelhead do not hold on the bottom or ride a thermocline. They swim in the top 15 feet, in 58 to 62 degree surface water, often over 300 feet of water, hunting insects and small bait along floating debris lines. You find them by looking for the scum line and running fast.

The tributary fishery runs from October to May and is a wading, drifting and float-fishing game on rivers like the Big Manistee, the Muskegon and the Pere Marquette. It is technical, weather-driven and crowded in the good weeks.

Fishing the scum line

Get out to 200 feet or better, then get farther. Look for a visible line of foam, sticks and dead insects — the interface where two surface currents converge. It can be a mile long and twenty feet wide. Steelhead will be under it.

Everything about the presentation runs counter to salmon habits. Speed up: 2.5 to 3.0 mph, sometimes faster. Go shallow: boards with 150 to 250 foot leads and divers on a 1 setting, all in the top 20 feet. Go bright: orange, pink, copper and chartreuse. And spread wide, because steelhead in flat clear water will slide away from the hull.

The Michigan river system

The Big Manistee below Tippy Dam is the workhorse — a tailwater with cold, stable flow that holds steelhead from October straight through May. The Muskegon below Croton is wider and better suited to a drift boat, with a spring run that peaks in March and April. The Pere Marquette is smaller, wild-fish water, and its flies-only stretch is one of the classic pieces of trout water in the Midwest. The St. Joseph in the south starts earlier in fall.

Wisconsin’s Root River at Racine and the Milwaukee-area streams carry solid runs and are easy to reach from a city.

How to actually catch one on the river

Float fishing is the highest-percentage approach for most anglers. Set a spawn sac, a single bead or a small jig 6 to 18 inches off the bottom under a slip float, and drift it through a run at exactly the speed of the current — not faster, not slower, no drag. A steelhead sitting behind a rock will take a bait that moves naturally and ignore one that skates.

Cover water. A run that has been drifted three times without a strike is a run that is done. The anglers who catch the most steelhead are the ones who walk the most river.

Water temperature governs everything. At 34 to 38 degrees the fish are lethargic and stacked in the deepest slow water; you need the drift slow and the bait close. At 42 to 50 degrees in March they spread into faster runs and take aggressively.

Compared to the other lakes

Erie’s Steelhead Alley is a shorter, more concentrated fall and winter run in small creeks. Ontario’s Salmon River fishery is bigger water and heavier crowds. Superior’s tributaries produce a smaller number of very wild fish. Lake Michigan is the one with both a legitimate offshore fishery and dozens of rivers, which is why you can fish steelhead here for nine months of the year without repeating yourself.

Safety

The offshore steelhead bite happens 8 to 12 miles out. That is a real commitment in any boat under 20 feet, and Lake Michigan builds a short steep chop fast in a northwest wind. On the rivers, the hazard is different: cold water, slick rock and heavy winter flow. Wear a wading belt, carry a staff, and never wade a tailwater without knowing the dam’s release schedule.