The Primary Differences Between Steelhead And Rainbow Trout

What is your top favorite to cast? Is it the same as your fellow anglers or different?

Do you know that the most favored game fish is trout? In this article, two common trouts to fishermen will be distinguished clearly so you can easily differentiate them if you go sportfishing with other anglers.

Both require a pool of fishing experience, which poses an exciting challenge to both experienced and inexperienced as well. Being the favorite of fly fishermen, steelhead and rainbow trout share some similarities but mainly differ in the living habitat during the spawning process.

Rainbow Trout Overview

As freshwater trout, rainbow trout is one of the fisherman’s favorites for its tasty flavor among other varieties like steelhead trout (which will be compared later), Kamloops trout from the interior of British Columbia, and hatchery.

Life Cycle

Rainbow trout are freshwater residents which spend the whole cycle in shallow rivers or deep lakes. Anglers can easily find them in stretches of the swift-flowing body of water with an abundant cover or relatively deep, chilly lakes with enough food sources for higher fertility.

The preferred temperature ranges from 55 ° to 64 °F but they still can suffer the highest temperature up to 70 ° F and as low as 42°F.

From early to spring, which is different between the Northern (January to June) and Southern Hemisphere (September to November), rainbow trout undergo a spawning process usually under a bed of fine gravel. In general, female rainbow trout lay 2000–3000 0.16–0.20 eggs per kg of weight.

Then, the female buries the eggs under displaced gravel near the upstream edge of the nest. The males follow and scatter milt (sperm) on the eggs to fertilize them, which later takes four to seven weeks for hatching.

Food

At 2 weeks old, newly hatched trout generally feed on zooplankton. Then, the major sources of food for adult rainbows are insects, crustaceans, snails, leeches, and other fish, if any are present.

In bodies of water supplied with aquatic vegetation, rainbow trout can also consume arthropods. Compared to brown trout, they feed on the surface less frequently, according to certain research.

Taste

The taste largely depends on the living environment. Small lake and stream populations might leave a muddy taste in your mouth or slight sweetness if the freshwater is clear.

Large lake and river populations, on the other hand, with a piscivorous diet, have a much tastier flavor. The flesh color varies accordingly, from bright red to pink and white in larger rivers.

Color

Do you know why rainbow trout are called rainbow?

Yes, I think you can easily guess the answer as rainbow trout has multi-hued skin colors which can be blue, green, or yellowish. Normally, the combination of the blue-green and reddish-pink band features the back of rainbow trout while the lower sides are silver and fade to pure white.

Small black spots cover the upper fins and tail and are more present and dense near the tail. If you can take a closer look, some striking features of rainbow trout are eight to twelve rays in the anal fin, and no teeth at the base of the tongue.

You may wonder, among all features, what should anglers pay attention to the most to distinguish between stream dwellers, lake residents’ rainbow trouts, and steelhead trout.

The answer lies in coloration. The most vivid color, intense pink stripe, and heaviest spotting are in stream residents, followed by their lake counterparts, and least radiant in steelhead.

Angling

Based on the living habitat, rainbow becomes attractive to many anglers. But beware, these fighters often leap and fight hard regardless of their size. It really depends on the fishing environment to decide on the right angling methods, which are Weighted spinners, wobbling spoons, streamer flies, Muddler Minnows, and eggs.

Steelhead Overview

The coloration of steelhead depends on their habitat

So, are rainbow trout and steelhead the same fish?

Well, interestingly, they share the same scientific name: Oncorhynchus mykiss, but steelhead is another form of rainbow trout. Actually, the name derives from being anadromous: migrating to the sea as a juvenile and coming back to freshwater for reproduction.

Can you think of any species undergoing the same anadromy process?

It’s Pacific salmon which dies right after spawning. This sets it apart from steelhead/rainbow trout which spawns more than once.

Life cycle

The spawning process of steelhead is quite similar to that of rainbow trout when a female lays up to 1000 eggs under the gravel to avoid being washed away or eaten by predators. It takes around one month to finish hatching eggs. The food source for these eggs comes from inside the eggs so they haven’t migrated at this stage yet.

So when does the migration begin?

Well, after the newly hatched eggs turn into alevin (5-week old), and then fry (up to 1 year old), and then smolt (up to 2 years old), these teenage trout now swim to the estuary for more food. Ocean adults spend another five years migrating, which is a good portion of their lives if not being eaten by many big predators like sharks, and sea lions.

When it’s the right time for reproducing, the spawners now migrate up small tributaries to lay eggs.

Food

When steelhead trout are just a few weeks old, they live mainly on the food from their big belly – part of the egg. While fry prefers tiny bugs, smolt now can consume more like big bugs, shrimp, sand crabs, and tiny fish. In the ocean, their main food sources are squid, crustaceans, and small fish whereas pelagic baitfish such as alewives and smelt are what they feed on in large lakes.