Is it a Steelhead or a Rainbow? With Katie Kobayashi

The Orvis Fly-Fishing Podcast

James Hathaway

Sports, Wilderness, Education, How To

4.8 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 11 February 2026

⏱️ 71 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When is a trout a steelhead and when is it a rainbow? Are steelhead just rainbow trout that migrate to the ocean? Is it something in their genes or just random chance? And in a given population of rainbow trout, will only some of them migrate to the ocean? And according to a biologist, are the Great Lakes "steelhead" truly steelhead? My guest fisheries biologist Katie Kobayashi [32:13] has studied these fish down to the genetic level and has some exciting information on their life histories.

In the Fly Box this week, we have some great questions that I think will be helpful to many of you, including:
If I hook a trout in the back behind the dorsal fin, will it survive OK? And can I count this fish as "caught"?
What is the most useful saltwater fly line for inshore species?
For my smaller creeks in Pennsylvania, would an 8 ½ foot 4-weight or 7 1/2-foot 3-weight be better?
Have you used articulated flies? Have you had success with them? Are there articulated subsurface flies other than streamers?
I have an 8-weight rod for flats fishing in salt water and want a second rod for bigger stuff. Should I get a 9-weight or a 10-weight?
For fishing in a Colorado tailwater, when should I use an indicator setup and when should I Euro-nymph? And when Euro nymphing, how can I get a tiny size 22 nymph down into the right zone?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi and welcome to the Orvis Fly Fishing podcast.
0:15.9	This is your host, Tom Rosenbauer.
0:18.0	And my guest this week is fish biologist Katie Kobayashi. Katie has been studying
0:26.9	Steelhead, Steelhead genetics, and steelhead life histories. And she has some surprising things to say
0:33.9	about the difference between Steelhead and Rainbow Trout. Is there a difference between steelhead and rainbow trout. Is there a difference between
0:40.3	steelhead and rainbow trout? And if so, how can we determine that? It's a question that often
0:46.8	comes up and often creates some controversy. So Katie answers this and she also answers the question from a biological standpoint,
0:59.0	are Great Lake Steelhead really Steelhead? And you'll have to stay tuned to find out her answer.
1:06.8	It's just a few announcements. One is that I still have, I think, two rooms available left in my Iceland trip, July 15th through 20th.
1:15.9	This is a trip that I hosted last year.
1:19.0	We had a fantastic time.
1:20.5	We caught Atlantic salmon.
1:22.2	We caught big brown trout.
1:23.7	We caught Seerun Browns.
1:25.5	We caught Arctic Char.
1:29.7	Sea Run Arctic Char. We caught them on dries. We caught them on nymphs. We caught sea run browns. We caught Arctic Char. Sea run Arctic Char. We caught them on dries.
1:34.8	We caught them on nymphs. We caught them on salmon flies. And we fished big rivers and smaller creeks and with an amazing group of guides and a wonderful lodge, Long Valley Lodge in
1:43.6	Iceland. So one of the, one of the coolest trips I ever took
1:46.3	and I decided to host another one this year because we all had so much fun last year. So
1:52.5	anyway, that's July 15th through 20th. If you're interested, you can contact Orvis Adventures.
1:59.6	My trip is listed on the Orvis website and you can check it out and see if you'd like to come.
2:07.2	Also this week, if you're interested in traveling a little bit closer to home, I have three
	...

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