Photo by Dick Swan

Summertime is Skamania time here in northern Indiana. This is the time of year that tackle-busting Skamania-strain steelhead enter the shallows of Lake Michigan and begin heading up the creeks and streams on their annual spawning run. This creates a real bonanza for anglers who are anxious to catch one of these trophy-sized fish. Mature Skamania average 8 to 12 pounds, and often push the scales to 15 or even 20 pounds.

For those anglers who are not familiar with Skamania, or even steelhead in general for that matter, the explanation is not complicated. A Lake Michigan steelhead is simply a rainbow trout that spends the bulk of its life out in the lake, and then returns to its stream of birth to spawn. Presently, Indiana stocks two types of steelhead into Lake Michigan and its tributaries: Skamania-strain and Michigan-strain steelhead.

Skamania-strain steelhead are a particular strain of trout that begin their spawning run in the summer rather than in the fall. Once they enter the streams, they typically stay there throughout the summer, fall and winter, and finally spawn the following spring. After spawning, they return downstream to the lake.

Skamania are fairly easy to identify. They are long and slender, while their Michigan-strain cousins are usually shorter, fatter and more football-shaped. Both types of steelhead are bright silver when they begin their spawning runs, and they each develop a pink stripe on their flanks as the run progresses. Skamania are the biggest members of the family, and that helps make them the most popular as well.

Despite some reports to the contrary, natural reproduction of steelhead in Indiana is negligible. Even though our streams are much cleaner than they were decades ago, they are still just too warm and turbid for successful reproduction. Even when eggs do hatch successfully, warm water during the summer usually kills off the fragile fingerlings. That makes stocking larger fish essential for maintaining a quality fishery.

In order to ensure good survival rates, Indiana fisheries biologists stock fingerling Skamania steelhead in the spring when they are about a year old. At this age the fish are typically about 7 inches long and survival rates are high. After they are released, the young steelhead migrate downstream to the lake and grow for two or three years before they return to the streams to spawn.

The bulk of the steelhead that return during the summer run are 3-year-old and 4-year-old fish. The 4-year-old steelies that will be hitting the stream mouths this summer were stocked in the spring of 2002. According to stocking records from the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), more than 126,000 Skamania-strain steelhead were stocked in Trail Creek and the Little Calumet River in the spring of 2002. Another 52,181 Skamania were stocked in the fall of that year, also.

When you take into account the fish that were stocked into the St. Joseph River, the numbers really soar. There were 178,903 Skamania-strain steelhead stocked into the St. Joe in the spring of 2002, along with nearly 88,000 added in the fall. The totals for 2002 alone come to more than 445,000 Skamania, and that doesn't count the fish stocked in 2001 or 2003, which will also contribute to the overall catch this year.