Lake Michigan is loaded.
Loaded with silver bullets known as steelheads, that is. This version of rainbow trout that lives in Lake Michigan and spawns in streams is one of the most explosive fish found in the lake.
"They are one of the fastest fish on the lake and are very acrobatic," Mike Ryan of Chesterton said. "Steelhead put on a tremendous fight and can jump 6-to-8 feet out of the water when hooked.
"They don't just bulldoze like salmon do. Some people call steelhead the tarpon of the north because of their fight."
The steelhead was reintroduced to Lake Michigan in the early 1970s.
"Some records indicate that there were steelhead in the lake in the late 1800s," said Brian Briedert, a fisheries biologist with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. "The current stocking programs got underway in the '70s, with 1972 having the greatest number.
"Steelhead were introduced to provide diverse sport fishing and to help control exotic fish species, primarily alewives. They were added because of the success of the salmon program."
There are several strains of steelheads stocked in Lake Michigan, with skamania being the primary type. Both summer-run and winter-run steelheads exist in local waters, and since the different run strains are entering and leaving the streams at various times steelheads provide fishing nearly all year long.
Not only are steelheads readily available, they are willing participants.
"They are one of the easiest fish to hook, but, at the same time, one of the hardest to land," Ryan said. "They will hit a lot of things, just about anything that you put out there. In the summer, anything red or orange will work."
Steelheads are stocked in two locations in Indiana: the Mixsawbah State Fish Hatchery near Walkerton and the Bodine State Fishery on the St. Joseph River near Mishawaka.
"Indiana is one of the few places on the Great Lakes where we provide eggs," Briedert said. "We collect around one million. We produce 450,000 steelhead from eggs in Indiana between the two fisheries and provide eggs to other states for their stocking programs."
Young steelheads are released in the spring when they reach about 7 inches in length. Younger fingerlings, fish about 5 inches long, are sometimes released in the fall as well.
"We are happy if we have a 60 percent return from the collection," Briedert said.
Steelheads first spawn at 3 or 4 years of age and can live to be 6 or 7, during which time they'll spawn two or three times. An average fish is 10-to-12 pounds, but some have gotten larger than 20 pounds.
