Whitefish or steelhead?

Vic -

To tell the difference between summer steelhead and whitefish is easy - one takes you into the backing in the blink of an eye, jumping 5 feet into the air, and puts a lump in your throat. Whitefish.... dont. }>

Seriously, you will eventually be able to tell real quickly by a number of things. First of all, it's hard to see the shadow of suckers (which are probably the big ones you see) and other so-called coarse fish on the bottom below the fish, but it's easy to see the steelhead's shadow.

Bright steelhead (and salmon) have an almost luminous silver glow on the fringes of their bodies that is unmistakable, coarse species don't.

But once you spend time staring at them for a while you will be able to tell just by looking at the shape, fins distribution and even the way they move.

If I am not mistaken this is a humpy year and I am surprised you are not talking about many different species being packed like sardines in a pool.

For an example of comparing steelhead to other fish visually, I would suggest the Oso railroad bridge on the Stilly.

Hi Vic,

Were you looking down from the Cicero Bridge on the NF Stilly?? I used to have the same dilemma when trying to spot steelhead from that same spot.

I'm guessing what you are seeing is suckers - they look like big fat dark whitefish, only bigger. The whites only get to about 20" (that I've seen), but I know some of the Suckers I've seen in that pool were 5-6lbs and there are plenty of them in the deeper holes in the NF Stilly.

The way I finally was able to distinguish them is that they have a very small head and are noticably wider at the pectoral fins (wedge-shaped). Summer steelhead are much more streamlined.

A funny story from my Stilly days - we'd spotted several steelhead in the rocks early one Saturday morning and had quietly sneaked into position beneath the railroad bridge to cast to them. As I worked out my 2nd cast into the run, there was a thunderous splash just upstream of my line. When I finally recovered from the shock, I heard laughter from above and watched as the brave little XXXX who'd jumped in surfaced and swam to shore.