[steelhead101]

I was looking at this website called fishwizard.com that said that Okanagan lake has steelhead in it... with the Ok river dam how is this possible?

 

[Dfisher]

I think this person is being rather liberal with the word steelhead. At one time, when the rivers did flow untouched to the ocean there may have been a run of fish that were able to do this. For instance, look at the population of kokanee in that lake. However, once dams and other obstructions were put in place the fish became landlocked. Therefore a person could argue that the rainbow found in that lake are descendants of a past run of Steelhead, but they are not Steelhead in the truest sense of the word.

 

[Big Green Machine]

There is some published literature out there that says there are Steelhead in Lake Okanagan. At one time, the lake was connected to the Columbia River system through the Okanagan River. I can assure you that there are steelhead size rainbows in OK Lake (and bigger), but they are not ocean bound. And yes, there have been historical reports of salmon and steelhead in the system as far up as Penticton but that is long gone. Having said that, there are some land locked rainbow trout that were once ocean going in many areas of BC. There are efforts to have sockeye (not Kokannee) return to this system by efforts of the local FN people, DFO and other community based efforts.