Rainbow Trout/Steelhead Opener 2024. Southern Ontario, Canada

Rainbow Trout/Steelhead Opener 2024. Catching Lots Of Fish.
Watch me hook and reel in a few beautiful Rainbow Trout. in this video I'm fishing a small river that connects to Lake Ontario. I live in southern Ontario, and fish rivers creeks and streams that connect to Lake Huron, Lake Erie and lake Ontario quite often in the conder months. my favorite time to trout fish is throughout the winter months. Other species of trout that i catch in southern Ontario are Brown Trout, Lake Trout, Brook trout, and Speckled Trout. Like and subscribe, id love to show you more of my catches in the future. i don't always film while fishing, but I'll try to keep on it for your entertainment. Thanks for watching.

Genetically, Rainbow Trout and Steelhead are the same species, Oncorhynchus mykiss (O, mykiss), but both fish live vastly different lives. The most basic difference between both fish is quite simple; rainbow trout reside and always stay in freshwater, while steelhead are anadromous, meaning that they migrate to the ocean.

To make this a little more confusing, these trout are also often considered steelhead when they migrate from lakes to rivers to spawn. The best example of this is in the great lakes where the “steelhead” are completely freshwater fish, but they live in the lake, and spawn in the connecting rivers. (All, if not nearly all of the successful reproduction of these fish is due to fisheries, and not natural spawning).

Scientists are still puzzled to this day as to what causes these fish to be anadromous vs freshwater dwelling. Some theories and correlations have arisen:

Steelhead have higher metabolic rates
Food availability seems to be a factor. Areas with high food availability will have less anadromous fish as there is no need to migrate.
When water is cold, summer water flows stay high, and food availability is high, there tends to be less migrating fish.
There are known different strains of rainbow trout, some of which appear to have a better likelihood of being anadromous.