Early May is usually primetime smallmouth fishing in the Lake Erie tribs, so I decided to take a trip out to 18 to see if I could find some fish. Issue was the temperature had been all over the place over the past couple weeks, with a recent cold snap the few nights prior (low 30s).
I rolled up to 18 at around 10 am. The day was cloudy and cold, temps were probably in the low 50s at best. Water color and flow were pretty darn good, so I was hoping to pull some fish.
I walked up to riffle that poured into a long run to find a steelhead taking flies off the surface. Yes, a steelhead. This was only the second time in my life (if that) that I had seen a steelhead sipping dries. Good thing I had a fluoro leader and my dry fly box back in the car!
Although I was there for smallmouth, there was no way I was passing up an opportunity for a steelhead. I figured I could get him to smack the streamer, but I ended up spooking him on my approach. I decided to swing anyway. To my surprise, another steelhead chased my streamer, and quickly darted back to cover after I missed the hookset. He proceeded to eat my streamer around four times before finally getting wary. Yeah, I missed him at least four times, not my best performance.
I made my way up to a small pool to see if I could get any smallmouth to eat. No dice. I tried another area with several fish present, all tight lipped. Things weren’t looking good.
I tried to find the wily steelhead from the riffle again, but he wouldn’t chase, so I made my way down to the large run.
I could see a cut around 15 yards across/downstream. I couldn’t tell if there was a rock edge in the cut or if it was a fish, so I swung through. Lo and behold, the rock cut moved toward my streamer and then backed away. Shit, I thought, he must be spooked. It was a nice size fish too.
Nevertheless, I swung through again, passing the streamer right by the fish’s nose (I couldn’t actually see the fish’s mouth, it was more so just an elongated dark mass). The dark mass moved laterally, then back. Shit, I thought, missed him again. Then, as I started to strip my streamer in, boom.
Before I knew it, my line was cutting through the water all the way up to the head of the run, then back down. I couldn’t reel fast enough to pick up the slack, this fish was flying. The fish was tearing up the pool as if it were fouled (those who have ever fouled a steelhead know what I mean), but I knew it couldn’t have been fouled because of the location of my fly at time of hookset.
After ripping up the pool, I finally landed her. She was a beautiful female; a few missing scales but nothing serious and a beautiful purple hue. My first ever May steelhead out of the Erie tribs.
After releasing her, I decided to swing all the way down to the car. In doing so, I managed to pick up a few smallmouth (only took one pic because they were all around the same size and I was looking like a chach).
Overall, a pretty nice day and well worth the trip.
