Over the years many techniques have been developed for deep water steelhead. Some are very successful while others have their time and place under strange conditions.
Last season several different lure combinations were tried and a couple of surprises surfaced.

Rapala

A small Fluorescent Red CD 9 Rapala run 3 to 4' behind the ball worked very well. We ran the Rapala off the camera ball to observe the action. We tried both the Jointed and Floating models but the Countdown version had  overwhelming success
The action was a tight shimmering effect that just drove the steelhead wild! Not once did a steelhead nudge the bait and swim off! Everyone that approached the Rapala took it to task.
We believe that its both the tight action and the colour the makes this one lure so productive! .

Flatfish

The other surprise was from Jerry Preston from Kincardine. A recent convert to deep water Lake Ontario Steelhead, Jerry had amazing success with a U 20 Fluorescent Red Flatfish. A lure that was very prominent with pier casters during the late seventies! He consistently landed excellent numbers of steelhead with this Old Timer!

So not one to let an opportunity to learn pass me by, I tried the U20 behind the underwater camera cannonball. The lead was about 4' to keep it with in the cameras limitations. 
The flatfish had an excellent action with no twisting or spinning
Steelhead after steelhead took the Flatfish but we had trouble with the small hooks on the U20 model. They just smashed it to pieces!