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Primo Steelhead water (Corel) |
If you want to know what a salmon-size trout feels like on the end of your line, there's only one fish to turn to: the strapping steelhead. And if you want to go steelheading, nowhere else even comes close to British Columbia. This gorgeous western Canadian province qualifies as an angler's paradise even without steelheads. But the hundreds of rivers that flow through British Columbia on their way to the sea offer unparalleled opportunities to hook up with one of these silvery brutes.
Steelheads—anadromous rainbow trout and technically members of the salmon family—hatch in rivers, mature in the sea, and return home to spawn. Unlike Pacific salmon, hardy steelheads live to spawn a second and sometimes even a third time. An average steelhead is some 20 to 30 inches long, and a good ten pounds, but juggernauts upwards of 35 pounds have been hooked. And regardless of their size, they all fight like pit bulls, jumping time after time before making screaming runs upstream and downstream. By the time you land one, you'll have earned your Molson.
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