Great Lakes Steelhead: Tactics, Tactics, and the Eternal Debate

Few topics ignite more passionate debate among fly fishers than the legitimacy of Great Lakes steelhead. Are they true steelhead, or simply glorified lake-run rainbow trout? For Joe Goodspeed ?" founder of Diamondback Fly Rods, lifelong angler, and a man who has chased migratory fish from the salmon rivers of Alaska to the Atlantic coast of Ireland ?" the answer is more nuanced than most anglers are willing to admit. In a wide-ranging conversation, Goodspeed broke down his decades of experience targeting Great Lakes steelhead, sharing the tactics, tackle, and hard-won wisdom that have helped him consistently land trophy fish from the tributaries of Lakes Ontario and Erie.

The Great Debate: Are Great Lakes Steelhead Really Steelhead?

The internet has been awash in takes on this question, and frankly, most of them miss the mark. The real answer requires the kind of firsthand experience that Goodspeed brings to the table ?" having caught West Coast steelhead, Pacific king salmon in Alaska, Atlantic salmon from sea-run rivers, and Great Lakes fish from his home waters in Upstate New York. Few anglers are positioned to make this comparison with genuine authority.

Goodspeed grew up fishing the Salmon River out of Lake Ontario, starting around age nine. Through his college years at Geneseo, he added the Genesee River, Oak Orchard, and Lake Erie tributaries like Cattaraugus to his résumé. That breadth of experience informs his measured but ultimately respectful view of Great Lakes fish.

"I think that the distinction should be fish are from the ocean or fish are not from the ocean, but I do think that some of those fish that are planted in the Great Lakes ?" those strains of fish from the Skamania and Chambers Creek strain ?" are pretty exceptional fish when you get them."

The Chambers Creek strain, a Washington State-origin fish stocked into Lake Ontario, is central to Goodspeed's argument. These fish grow large, run in winter, and when encountered as wild, naturally reproducing specimens in peak condition, they present a challenge that rivals anything an angler might encounter on a Pacific coast river. His friend and fellow fly fisher JC Clark ?" an accomplished Atlantic salmon angler who has fished Oregon's steelhead rivers ?" echoed this sentiment, telling Goodspeed that a big, hot fall fish from the Salmon River is a genuinely significant fish by any standard.

"When you catch a big full-finned, white-tipped finned fish there in the middle of winter, they are just an animal of a fish to control. For me, oftentimes that's going to be a more spectacular fish to handle than some of the fish that you might catch that are true anadromous fish in other parts of the country."

Goodspeed is careful to draw an important distinction, however. There is a wide spectrum within Great Lakes steelhead fishing. The shallow, less diverse ecosystem of Lake Erie produces fish that, in his experience, are simply not comparable to the Lake Ontario or Lake Michigan fish. He recalls catching rainbow trout at Oak Orchard in college that bore a distinct red lateral band and fought more like brown trout than the bright silver, ocean-conditioned animals that Lake Ontario anglers know. Genetics matter, and not all Great Lakes steelhead are created equal.

The Psychology of Pressured Fish

Whether or not one accepts Great Lakes steelhead as "true" steelhead, there is no debate about one thing: these fish are smart. Tributaries like the Salmon River see enormous fishing pressure, and fish that have survived multiple spawning runs have been caught, handled, and released many times over. The result is an adversary that has essentially earned a Ph.D. in predator avoidance.

"They just see so much more pressure ?" people fishing for them ?" so they are a much more educated thing. It's its own separate thing, but it's a very legitimate adversary, for sure."

Goodspeed's observations about where these educated fish choose to hold reveal a behavioral pattern he has noticed not just in Great Lakes tributaries, but in migratory fish fisheries around the world. The biggest, oldest fish consistently choose lies that neutralize the most common presentation strategies ?" not because those spots are ideal feeding lies, but because they are the safest places to be.

"The biggest steelhead try to hold in the spots that are most difficult for someone to make a presentation to them. They've avoided so many things and they've come up with this great strategy of what sort of water they can sit in."

He identifies a handful of these holding lies: tight against cliff walls where a thin cushion of soft water exists but a fly cannot be swung across the fish; right up against boulders where a drifted line cannot wrap around; and inside complex woody debris and submerged structure. These fish have learned, through repeated exposure, exactly where a drifted nymph, swung streamer, or dragged snag rig cannot reach them. Finding them requires a willingness to make difficult, precise presentations in tight quarters ?" and accepting that the fish must choose to come to the fly, not the other way around.

Nymphing Tactics for Great Lakes Steelhead

When it comes to tackle and technique for inland steelhead, Goodspeed is refreshingly direct: he nymphs. While he will occasionally swing flies with a single-hand rod using roll casts, the drift-style nymphing approach has accounted for the vast majority of his best fish over more than three decades on the water.

"The big ones, I've always caught them on nymphs ?" oftentimes smaller nymphs. Natural flies that imitate stoneflies or the immature nymphs that are there in the wintertime. That's the stuff I've caught the largest fish on."

His fly selection leans natural throughout most of the season, with egg patterns making an appearance in the fall when spawning salmon are present and loose eggs are drifting through the water column. But his most distinctive tactical innovation centers not on fly choice, but on weight.

The Fabric Weight System and Strike Detection

Goodspeed has developed a specific approach to weighting his nymphing rigs that addresses two simultaneous problems: spooking pressured fish with flash and losing strike detection by placing weight too far from the fly. His solution is elegantly simple ?" he uses small weights enclosed in fabric pouches made from shoelaces, attached to his tippet above a tippet ring that acts as a stop.

The fabric covering serves multiple purposes. First, it eliminates the metallic flash of exposed split shot, allowing the weight to be positioned much closer to the fly without spooking fish that have learned to associate flash with danger. Second, the fabric reduces the overall density of the weight, causing it to move more freely with the current rather than plunging into crevices between rocks ?" a persistent problem with bare lead or tungsten weights in the rocky freestone streams that steelhead prefer.

"By covering up the weight in a way that you can not have the fish spook at the flash of the weight close to the fly, you can get the weight a lot closer to the fly, and then that allows you to get better strike detection ?" because the lag between when a fish will eat your fly in fast water and when your line will register that pause happening, you decrease that lag."

The goal of the entire system is to drift the fly through the water column ?" not bang it along the bottom. Goodspeed describes his preferred approach as a pendulum drift, where the rig may touch bottom briefly in the middle of the drift but is primarily moving at current speed through the mid-column. This keeps the fly in the strike zone, reduces snags, and crucially, means the fly is intercepted by fish that have actively chosen to eat ?" not bumped into fish that have no interest in biting.

Rod Selection: Matching the Tool to the Season

Goodspeed's rod choices for Great Lakes nymphing shift with the calendar, and the reasoning is worth understanding. Early season ?" late September through October ?" calls for a seven-weight when targeting the big, fresh fish that have just entered the tributaries from the lake. These fish are at peak fitness and strength, and leaders in the eight-pound class are appropriate. The heavier rod handles these powerful fish and provides the backbone needed to manage them in fast water.

As the season progresses into November and the fish transition toward more selective winter behavior, Goodspeed reaches for a six-weight. The lighter rod offers better feel with the finer leaders ?" five and six-pound tippet ?" that winter fish require, and critically, provides better cushioning to protect those lighter connections during the fight.

"It's a lot easier for me to really put pressure on a fish with five-pound test with a six-weight than it would be with the seven."

For both applications, Goodspeed's Generation 4 Nymph Rods from Diamondback ?" the 10-foot 7-inch six-weight and seven-weight ?" are his go-to tools. Beyond pure nymphing, he notes these rods are versatile enough to handle indicator fishing and roll-cast fly swinging with a double taper or true-to-weight line, making them adaptable across multiple Great Lakes steelhead techniques throughout the season.

Fall vs. Winter: Two Completely Different Fish

Perhaps no aspect of Great Lakes steelhead fishing is more misunderstood by visiting anglers than the dramatic behavioral shift that takes place between fall and winter. Goodspeed is emphatic: these are not the same fish in the same mindset. Targeting them effectively requires understanding that difference.

Fall fish are at their most aggressive. Fresh from the lake, they retain full fitness and an active feeding metabolism. They respond to color, movement, and pattern variety. Presentation needs to be good, but these fish are still in a mode where they want to feed. They're found in transition zones and current seams, often actively moving upriver, and they can be taken on a wider range of offerings.

"They're much more reactive to colors and movement in the fall. They're in a more aggressive mode."

Winter fish are a different proposition entirely. Having settled into deep, slow wintering holes, burned through significant energy reserves, and been caught and released multiple times, these fish become highly selective and increasingly suspicious. Their metabolism has slowed with the water temperature, and their willingness to eat anything that doesn't look precisely right diminishes sharply. Midges and early-season winter stoneflies become the primary food sources, and a size 18 midge pattern fished during the warmest two hours of a January afternoon can outfish any flashy streamer or egg pattern.

"In the wintertime it can get weird where they'll bite something just because it looks different than everything else ?" or they're eating things that are really small or really natural."

Goodspeed identifies a sweet spot he particularly prizes: the mid-fall window when the bulk of the season's spawning fish have arrived but haven't yet settled into the lethargy of wintering lies. These fish are still holding in current, still relatively aggressive, and still strong enough to make the encounter genuinely memorable. It's his favorite time to be on the water.

The Winter Wintering Hole Bite

For anglers who do choose to target fish in midwinter holding water, Goodspeed offers a counterintuitive piece of tactical advice: scale down aggressively. The same fish that required a seven-weight in October might be landed comfortably on a four-weight in January with three or four-pound tippet. The fish simply don't fight the same way when cold water has sapped their energy and river life has diminished their condition.

The upside of the wintering hole scenario is that fish can be manipulated with frequent fly changes. A pod of stale fish that has been sitting in the same pool for weeks will sometimes react to a new presentation simply because it's different from everything they've seen. Working through fly changes methodically ?" offering each new pattern on the first or second drift before it too becomes familiar ?" can provoke strikes from fish that are not actively feeding. It's a chess game rather than a hunt, and Goodspeed admits it's not his preferred challenge, but it remains a legitimate and productive late-season option.

Swinging Flies: Spey, Euro, and the Art of Purpose

While Goodspeed's Great Lakes approach centers on nymphing, his perspective on swinging flies ?" particularly for sea-run fish ?" reflects genuine respect for a discipline he approaches with humility. For ocean-run steelhead and Atlantic salmon, the swung fly holds a special appeal that he doesn't feel for inland fish, and he's honest about his own limitations with two-hand tackle.

"I like the challenge of trying to cover fish from the ocean with a swinging fly. I don't like it as much for the inland fish."

He's quick to push back against the casual perception that swinging flies is a passive, random exercise. Drawing on his fishing alongside accomplished two-hand anglers like JC Clark and Mark Kordazzi ?" the latter known on social media as "This River Is Wild" ?" Goodspeed describes the discipline as a structured, purposeful endeavor that separates consistent producers from occasional-luck anglers.

"With any successful fisherman, everything is done with a purpose. But it's easy with swinging flies to have a perception of it as just going through the motions. That's absolutely not the case. The more I've personally done it, the more separation I see with the successful anglers versus the people who run into a fish every once in a while."

On the topic of euro nymphing for sea-run fish, Goodspeed acknowledges he simply hasn't gone there ?" his limited West Coast and Oregon experience has been dedicated to the swung fly, and he prefers to keep it that way for those fish. A Diamondback spey rod, for the record, is in development ?" 11-foot 9-inch five-piece models in six, seven, and eight-weight are mid-project ?" which suggests that two-hand options from the brand are on the horizon for anglers who do want to pursue that path.

What Three Decades on the Water Teaches You

Goodspeed began catching steelhead on the Salmon River with his father at age nine. He's now 41, and by his own account, there hasn't been a single year in those three-plus decades when he hasn't caught a meaningful number of these fish. That kind of sustained, focused experience produces insights that transcend any single tactic or fly pattern.

The through-line of his entire approach ?" whether he's talking about weight systems, rod selection, seasonal behavior, or holding lies ?" is the relentless pursuit of understanding the fish on its own terms. Not forcing a presentation onto water and hoping for the best, but reading the environment, identifying where the most sophisticated fish will be and why, and engineering a delivery that gives those fish a reason to eat.

For Great Lakes steelhead anglers ?" whether they're fishing the Salmon River in November with fresh lake-run fish crashing through every pool, or picking their way through icy January currents in search of a single stale fish in a wintering hole ?" the fundamentals Goodspeed describes offer a framework worth adopting. Scale down as the season deepens. Prioritize strike detection over depth. Find the lies that the common presentations can't reach. And respect the fish enough to learn what it's telling you about where it wants to be and what it's willing to eat.

"It's a very legitimate adversary, for sure."

After thirty years of pursuing them, Joe Goodspeed clearly means every word of it.