Steelhead DNA

Essentially they are the same thing. You know I'm no scientist but it's been a great mystery to get to know and understand is the life history of rainbow trout and steelhead. Essentially they're the same fish. Some will activate and Become Ocean run rainbows which are Steelhead and some residualize and stay within the stream. What you have to look at. Is that steelhead are an incredibly complex life history. One of the recent studies done by Trout Unlimited is that they found that there are 38 different life histories in the Klamath River alone in southern Oregon and Northern California and the same thing holds true in most other basins and most other rivers is that nature has guarded itself against calamity, natural disasters, low water years, high water anything that can cause an upset in the genetic balance of a steelhead. And for that matter salmon in some respects too. But let's say something happens when they're out to sea and there is a massive blockade, a slide happens to the river and blocks access to specific parts of a river. Those fish that are stuck above the slide can just live out their history as a rainbow until that slide opens up and then other parts of the population segments will recolonize areas that may have been environmentally degradaded over time you'll find this in the Columbia and Snake river systems you have portions of the run that return very early. You have portions that return very late and everything in between.