Spring-Run Steelhead
In the spring, anglers have the most opportunities to catch Great Lakes steelhead using different techniques and fly patterns. You can swing streamers or Spey flies on sinking lines, or you can dead drift nymphs and egg flies “high-stick” style.
Pre-spawn males are aggressive and looking for anything to take their pre-spawn anxieties out on. This is the time to target the big males and expect savage strikes from ferocious fish. These fish are not nearly as concerned with eating as they are with letting go a little sexual tension. Translation: wrist-jolting strikes and screaming runs.
From early March to early May, weather in the Great Lakes can fluctuate between 2 feet of snow and 32 degrees to a sunny 60 degrees F. Though many of the spring fish are there to spawn and may have been there since last September, most of the fish have only been there a few weeks. As a rule, the fish that have wintered over will spawn earliest, some as soon as February, but most of the fish wait for the mid-April waters to warm to 45 or 50 degrees.
There has always been a debate over whether anglers should fish to steelhead on spawning redds. I did for many years, but at this stage in my angling life I feel the fish that are on redds are too vulnerable. At any given time there may be as many fish that are post-spawn, or pre-spawn, as there are actually spawning. This situation leaves a lot of fish somewhere in transition.
The Great Lakes steelhead seasons vary slightly from region to region. In Lakes Michigan, Superior, and Huron, the spring fish are fished most heavily. In the areas where the river bottoms are more slate and less gravel, fall fishing is more important.
Because the eastern waters of the Erie and Ontario tributaries suffer from a heavier spring runoff than the western Great Lakes rivers, the fish are not as accessible to the angler. These fisheries are more heavily dependent on hatchery fish but do have some natural reproduction. Some estimate that as many as 25 percent of the fish are naturally born in the river. Conversely, many of the rivers in the western Great Lakes have from 50 to 100 percent natural reproduction.
Many say Pacific Coast hatchery fish are soft and lifeless compared to their wild relatives, but that is not the case here. Great Lakes fish are not raised from brood stock out of a hatchery. Instead the eggs are taken from wild fish that have lived in the lakes, rather than circled a cement pond.
After catching 25-pound fish on the Kispiox, skating dry flies for surface-feeding steelhead on the Dean in British Columbia, and catching thousands of Great Lakes steelhead, I can tell you this: There is no difference between a hot Western fish and a hot Eastern fish. The Great Lakes rivers have higher populations of steelhead than any place on earth and for the traveling angler, that means more opportunities to catch them.
Great Lakes steelhead are naturalized, meaning they were originally planted, but they have been here more than 125 years. The first stocking was done in 1876 in Michigan’s Au Sable River with eggs from the McCloud River in California. Even though Great Lakes steelhead have their own characteristics, they are still Pacific Coast steelhead at heart, and so they act much like Pacific Coast steelhead.
Since Western or Pacific fish often have to jump falls in their quest for the spawning areas, they tend to move during high water. Great Lakes fish do the same and often stage at river mouths waiting for higher water, even though they might easily ascend. This is important to the angler trying to time peak runs. Even though there are fish in most of the rivers by late October, the biggest push (as much as 95 percent) of fish comes after the first big rains of late March and early April. The first rains are usually cold, so even though the rain persuades fish to move upstream, they will not start to spawn heavily until the water temperature approaches 50 degrees F.
Sinking Lines
Because steelhead fishing in the Great Lakes is relatively new for many anglers, there are many new ways of thinking about patterns and presentation. Scores of guides and anglers are moving to a traditional style of swinging flies that is already common among many Western steelhead fishermen.
I discovered how effective sinking lines could be the first time I guided my friend Jim Teeny. Jim almost exclusively fishes for steelhead with his sinking lines and a swing presentation. The first day we fished, I wasn’t sure how well Jim would do in our waters, because they were 3 feet higher than normal and dirty. I learned my lesson when he caught five fish and have since persuaded many steelhead to strike on swinging presentations.
A few rivers in the Great Lakes lend themselves better to this style of fishing by virtue of their size. Waters such as the Muskegon, Manistee, Au Sable, Cattaraugus, and Salmon rivers have sufficient room to cast and long enough runs to work a sinking line effectively.
Copyright © 2012 Intermedia Outdoors
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