Ohio waters offer stellar steelhead action
By Eric Sharp

VERMILION, Ohio -- I've often seen salmon stacked like cordwood in Michigan streams, with dozens flitting about in a pool and hundreds more in sight up and down the river.

The southern shore of Lake Erie is the only place outside of Alaska where you'll see steelhead in similar numbers.

"Ohio steelhead fishing is incredible. But you won't have a 50-fish day every time, no matter what friends tell you," said Jim Chamberlin, a steelhead guide from Monroe who fishes Ohio and Pennsylvania during the spring and fall steelhead runs.

"A decent day is 15-20 bites for each angler. If I have two guys with me, they should land five to 10 fish each. But you'll get days that are a lot better and some that are worse," said Chamberlin, who lives about 90 minutes from the Vermilion River where we were fishing.

The day started slowly. It took a couple of hours to locate fish, because the Vermilion had risen 2 feet since Chamberlin was here last and the steelhead had changed lies. But once we located them, the bite was on.

In 5 hours on the Vermilion and a smaller river nearby, we landed about 40 fish.

While sheer numbers increase an angler's odds, it's not necessarily the slam dunk you might expect. Chamberlin was mostly float fishing, and I mostly fished with a fly rod. While one of us would get a strike every few minutes, it was clear these fish had been spooked by fishing pressure.

The steelhead is a strain or subspecies of rainbow trout, a member of the Pacific salmon family that evolved in Pacific Coast watersheds. While resident rainbows spend their entire lives in their birth streams, steelhead evolved a survival strategy that has them leave the rivers after 18 months to spend three or four years feeding in the open Pacific Ocean. They sometimes roam thousands of miles before returning to the stream where they were hatched to spawn the next generation.

When rainbows were introduced to Midwestern rivers after the Civil War, some were steelhead that adapted the river-big water-river cycle to the Great Lakes. Their numbers were enhanced greatly in the late 20th Century when Great Lakes wildlife agencies began deliberately planting them.

"I love the Vermilion," Chamberlin said. "There are other Ohio rivers where you'll catch more fish, but they're not as pretty. ... On the Vermilion you have to be able to climb a steep hill or two. But on other rivers the banks are very flat, and I've even got a place where people can fish from a wheelchair."

Ohio has done a wonderful job providing access to the fish. While landowners along the riverbanks own the river bottom out to the middle of the stream, the state bought large chunks of riverbank along both sides of many prime streams before steelhead fishing became popular. Maps of access areas are available online for visiting anglers.

Fishing techniques in Ohio streams are the same as in Michigan Great Lakes tributaries. Spawn sacks in salmon pink, chartreuse and yellow are the standard baits, followed by nymphs and egg fly patterns.

Chamberlin likes float fishing for the efficacy and the fun of seeing a take. He prefers clear plastic European-style floats made by Drennan (available at many American tackle shops in steelhead areas). I'm also a Drennan fan, in part because it's easy to vary the depth of the lure to suit the depth of water.

While spawn worked well, another successful tactic was using the floats and small nymphs jigs Chamberlin ties. To me they look like a Hexagenia mayfly nymph, but he thinks steelhead take them for emerald shiner minnows, which in recent years have increased dramatically in Lake Erie.

Chamberlin also uses 9-foot spinning rods built on fly rod blanks. The limber tips protect 4-6 pound fluorocarbon leaders from hard strikes by a big steelhead yet can still set the hook and land fish quickly.

We caught a number of fish by casting into the current and then holding the rods high and checking the movement of the float every few seconds, which made the jig twitch and swing up off the bottom.

Ohio steelhead fishing is affordable and convenient for southeast Michigan anglers. A one-day, nonresident license costs $11, a three-day is $19 and an annual license is $40. The Vermilion is the nearest steelhead river -- about a 2-hour, 15-minute drive from Detroit. The Conneaut, which gets the biggest runs, is about 4 hours away, and in between are several excellent streams including the Rocky River in Cleveland and the Grand and Chagrin farther east.

While Ohio stocked steelhead for decades, the fishery virtually exploded about six years ago when the state began planting the Little Manistee subspecies from Michigan. Ohio now stocks about 500,000 a year in Lake Erie.

Michigan has been stocking 60,000-80,000 steelhead each year in the Huron River near Flat Rock and gets a return of about 3,000-5,000 adult steelhead each fall. But all of the Lake Erie tributaries where steelhead are stocked get too warm in summer to sustain significant natural reproduction.

While Michigan could increase steelhead runs in some rivers on lakes Michigan and Huron by increasing its plants, we never could match the hordes of fish that pour into Ohio rivers. What Ohio has going for it is a 200-mile shoreline on Lake Erie, the richest freshwater fishery in the world with the most productive food chain.

"The prey base in your lakes is mostly alewives," said Mike Durkalec, an Aquatic biologist for the Cleveland Metroparks system, home to the urban Rocky River that is one of the most productive fisheries in the state. "Lake Erie is just so much richer and more productive, and the fish feed on emerald shiners, smelt and gizzard shad."

As a result, Lake Erie steelhead grow faster, averaging 2-3 pounds after one year in the big lake, 6-7 pounds after two years and 8-11 pounds after three. That means most fish make their first spawning run after two years in Lake Erie, while slower-growing fish in lakes Huron and Michigan usually spawn for the first time after three or four years in the open water.

"We have a lot of fish here, but they don't get as big as in Michigan, because they return so quickly," Durkalec said. "Here, a 15-pound fish is enormous. That's a steelhead that stayed in the lake for at least four years, and you don't see many of them."

More information on Lake Erie steelhead fishing is available online at www.lakeeriesportfishing.com. Chamberlin can be reached at 248-522-6883 or through his Web site, www.fishwithjimoutfitters.com. Contact ERIC SHARP: 313-222-2511 or esharp@freepress.com.