Steelhead Run at Avonia Beach | Lake Erie, Pennsylvania

Each fall, one of Lake Erie’s most impressive natural spectacles takes place along the Pennsylvania shoreline as steelhead return to the creeks and tributaries where they were stocked as young fish.

This video captures steelhead making their fall run into Trout Run at Avonia Beach in Fairview, Pennsylvania, including fish surging through the shallow water and jumping as they work their way upstream.

Steelhead are a migratory form of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). Pennsylvania’s Lake Erie steelhead spend much of their lives in the open lake, where abundant food allows them to grow into large, powerful fish. As they mature, they return to tributaries during the cooler months. Steelhead have an extraordinary homing ability: as young smolts they imprint on the chemical characteristics of the water, and years later their sense of smell helps guide them back toward those same tributaries. Unlike Pacific salmon, steelhead can survive spawning and potentially make the journey again in later years.

Trout Run & the Avonia Beach Nursery Water

Trout Run at Avonia Beach Park has a particularly important role in Pennsylvania's Lake Erie steelhead program. The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission designates Trout Run as a nursery water, and fishing in the creek itself is prohibited. Thousands of steelhead can return to Trout Run, and during the fall the small, shallow stream can contain remarkable concentrations of fish.

These returning adults provide broodstock for Pennsylvania's steelhead stocking program. Fish are collected from Trout Run, and eggs and milt are taken to produce future generations of Lake Erie steelhead. Because natural reproduction of steelhead is limited in Pennsylvania's Lake Erie tributaries, stocking is essential to maintaining the fishery.

The Fish and Boat Commission has also changed its spawning operation at Avonia Beach to improve biosecurity. Rather than transporting live Lake Erie steelhead into hatchery facilities for spawning, fish collected from Trout Run can be processed onsite using temporary holding tanks and spawning facilities. After recovering, the adult steelhead are returned to Lake Erie and its tributaries. The procedure reduces the risk of introducing aquatic invasive species, diseases or pathogens into hatchery facilities.

The result is an unusual opportunity to watch these powerful Lake Erie fish at extremely close range as they return to the little stream that played a role in the beginning of their lives.

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