Just curious so I gotta ask.

What would happen if in March, the state traded a bunch of smolts from
our "mutt" Great Lakes steelhead with a hatchery in North Carolina and
then stocked the North Carolina rainbows in the tribs instead of the smolts.

Would they run out into the lake?

I can tell you what would return. They would be a bunch of redneck steelheads that only hit on copenhagen or natural light sented sucker spawn.

shees kNot a StAr duUd,  sHEes a HAeroe

ORIGINAL: steelstalker

Well, I'm sorry but you're going to have to make a new word to limit steelhead to being Oncorhynchus mykiss that migrate from salt to freshwater so that the poor steelhead know better.

steelhead are by def mykiss that travel to the sea, then back to freshwater to spawn...

They're not real smart animals, I love them but they're not smart, and as far as they know they are fully complying to the literal translation of anadromous. You would think that if salt was actually an important part of the lifecycle of these fish that it would be included in the term that is used to describe them. Hmm... must not be that important because it's not there. You can say whatever you want but Great Lakes Steelhead fully comply to the literal translation of the word anadromous, which makes you wrong.

they fit the def of potamodromous fish...
and a potamodromous mykiss is called a rainbow trout...

KJH,
 
So following your line of logic, if I take a tarpon out of the Gulf of Florida and put it in the mississippi river, it's not a tarpon anymore simply because the definition of a tarpon states that it is a "saltwater fish"?  The absence of salt water doesn't cancel out the genetics of the fish or the fact that it has the same tendencies as an anadromous steelhead. By definition only they are not steelhead but in all other manner they are a steelhead and not a rainbow trout.  It's like saying that a polar bear in captivity isn't a polar bear because it can't roam in its natural environment.  We have taken this fish and put it in an unnatural habitat, it doesn't change what the fish is.  The feeesh is a steeeelie.........bang.   

ORIGINAL: LDD

KJH,

So following your line of logic, if I take a tarpon out of the Gulf of Florida and put it in the mississippi river, it's not a tarpon anymore simply because the definition of a tarpon states that it is a "saltwater fish"?  The absence of salt water doesn't cancel out the genetics of the fish or the fact that it has the same tendencies as an anadromous steelhead. By definition only they are not steelhead but in all other manner they are a steelhead and not a rainbow trout.  It's like saying that a polar bear in captivity isn't a polar bear because it can't roam in its natural environment.  We have taken this fish and put it in an unnatural habitat, it doesn't change what the fish is.  The feeesh is a steeeelie.........bang.   

by my logic, that would be a dead tarpon...
zoos recreate an environment that is suitable for a polar bear to live...
can you create an environment that will allow for an anadromous??? of course not...
that is why a true steelhead is a special type of rainbow...
all steelhead are rainbows (Oncorhynchus mykiss)... but not all rainbows are steelhead


Oncorhynchus mykiss has the ability to live in both salt and freshwater... thats what makes it different...
to be qualified as a smaller "subset" of steelhead, the fish must be anadromous...
if it has "anadromous tendencies" in freshwater, that is called potamodromous...
"anadromous tendencies" only means migration to spawn... as you see in previous post there are different types of migration... all depended on types of water and direction traveled...

one of coutless examples...
a Oncorhynchus mykiss in elevenmile resovior that swims 3 miles upstream in the south platte river to spawn...
that would be what you (LDD) call "anadromous tendencies"... correct???
but wait...
thats all freshwater...
thats potamodromous migration...
thats a rainbow trout...


tell me which facts in post #68 are wrong...

ORIGINAL: KJH807

ORIGINAL: dano


So by your reasoning, the salmon in Lake Ontario are not really salmon because by definition, salmon are an anadromous fish.
Do I have that right?

not all salmon are anadromous...
landlocked salmon won't go to salt, even if unobstructed...

the chinook and coho in the G.L. are not a native fish... they were orignialy introduced to destory alewifes in MI in the late 60s...

man has created a "landlocked chinook" in the G.L.
this is not an anadromous fish... rather a potamodromos fish

???

 
So you are saying that the Great Lake Chinooks are still considered salmon, an anadromous fish. But since they spend their lives in fresh water, we call them landlock salmon. Right?
 Well, we can say the same thing about our steelhead. We should consider them landlocked steelhead by the same reasoning.
Since our landlocked steelhead go through a smoltification process like their pacific cousins, I would say that they are more closely related to steelhead than our domestic bows.  
 

Exactly Dano. 

ORIGINAL: LDD

Everything in post 68 I agree with...I'm just playing devil's advocate here...although you are wrong about the tarpon...they typically have anadromous tendencies and live in fresh and brackish water throughout the everglades, south america and in various rivers in costa rica. 
my point was that just becuase the environment is not adequate to support its "biological name" doesn't mean that the fish is not a steelhead.  The question then is, if the lake were salt, would the fish enter it?  My contention is that they would, thus making them steelhead.  There are rainbows (mykiss) in various rivers in alaska that never enter salt water and there are steelhead that obviously enter the salt and come back to spawn.  The fish in erie are genetically closer to the fish that enter the salt and not the rainbows that do not.  Therefore, the fish in Erie would enter the salt, if it were there, and that's what makes them steelhead although there is an absence of salt.  

 
i don't know much bout tarpon...i was generalizing a salt fish in fresh...
IF there was salt in the lake THEN they would be steelhead??? i understand the contention...BUT
G.L.s are not salt water...
 
my contention... there is no original genetic difference between steelhead and all other mykiss...
just a life cycle... one that the G.L. is lacking
 
 

I watched the republican debate the other night and I much prefer this. 

I cannot explain the smoltification process for resident rainbows because there is no such thing.  You do not remember anyone telling you the difference because it does not exist in resident rainbows.
 
 
 
 

what is the process for steelhead???

But it's still a chinook...or does that make it a bluegill??

Migration.

I know it happens in a lot of areas.  They however stay in the river -- aka resident.  Resident fish don't go some place (in this case a lake) and return 2-4 years later to spawn.  Smoltification is the migration to the lake or the sea.  I will not deny that we have "fake" steelhead when comparing them to their ancestors but I would never accept that GL fish are not steelhead.  Their life cycles are totally different from resident fish.