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The Streak Continues

6K views 53 replies 12 participants last post by  Pat Bahan 
#1 · (Edited)
The Streak Is Over !!

Now 0 for 17 on steelies since last March.

Lost 2 more today. One was a beast. Guy down from landed mint chrone 13 pounder

May have to try bass fishing or go back to golf.

Rio T-14 rocks, casts nice, and sinks like "Red October"

My new Show Girls showed well.

Nothing like fresh run Michigan Little Manistee strain steelheadm they are coming back.

PM Out
 
#2 ·
steel in the hand

Sorry to hear of your tough luck:hehe: I went 6 for 9 last wk below ber. dam on the last day of my layoff!:D Had to be hot orange & pink- on the bottom to wake them up! I wasn't in the wall of people below the ladder--I boated down aways to a pocket--the water level was perfect for it. Ya just might have to sharpen those hooks & get some grand max flouro. Your not wasting your time fishing mustads are you?:tsk_tsk:
 
#3 ·
Tell us more about your skills....

Yeah. Right. Maybe a new hat will change your luck. (But I thought there was at least SOME skill involved.):devil:

Oh, well, you can enjoy casting with your new gear! Maybe even work on making 'em pretty, since the fish won't bother you by making you land them!:hehe:

BobK

PS - I can't receive any e-mail - some kind of problem???? I'll work it out.
 
#5 ·
pmflyfisher said:
Now 0 for 17 on steelies since last March.

Lost 2 more today. One was a beast. Guy down from landed mint chrone 13 pounder

May have to try bass fishing or go back to golf.

PM Out
Sniff, sniff -- Do I smell the rationalization for a Sage 5126 starting to waft from this thread.

"Y'know, that last steelie broke me clean off. If only I had a better rod with me . . . ."
 
#6 ·
No one was landing them except for the 70 year old farmer who totally lucked out keeping that 13 pound bullet from going around the corner and down through some submerged tree roots. Thought he was going to have a heart attack after he landed it he was so excited. Said he not caught one in over ten years due to his health he could not fish much and had to sit in a lawn chair while fishing. Go figure, this feloow was throwing a wobble glow from a lawn chair with a light spinning rod gets lucky and lands a 13 pounder !

None of the rest of us could hook more than 1 or 2 and then immediatedly lost them after a jump or few massive head shakes like mine, which decided to throw the fly up into a tree.

I did land a 4 pound sucker though.

Lots of fun met some interesting steelheaders who fished by me all day.

I think one was a GLs steelhead addict the way he talked, young guy with a float rod, silex set up, bobber fishing with spawn bags. He talked a good game any way.

I outfished him though hooked two to his one that morning. :razz:

Better get out that water is way to warm for end of march in high forties, they are going to come into some rivers do there thing and be gone quickly unless we get more cold weather soon IMHO.

PM Out
 
G
#7 · (Edited)
pmflyfisher said:


Better get out that water is way to warm for end of march in high forties, they are going to come into some rivers do there thing and be gone quickly unless we get more cold weather soon IMHO.

PM Out
The water is usually this high in March. Air temps are finally getting around to normal. Wev'e been below normal all month.

You should see fish well into April, even early May. It all really depends on rain. Since the big lake is still pretty cool they have not made that huge push near shore. Haven't see too many Coho and Browns caught on the piers. They best is still to come. I'd say the PM and Man in 2 weeks and the Mo' in 3 to 4.
 
#8 · (Edited)
No one was landing them except for the 70 year old farmer who totally lucked out keeping that 13 pound bullet from going around the corner and down through some submerged tree roots...
Back in my spinning rod days I was out on the end of a pier one night fishing for chinook along with about 20 other guys. This was 18-Mile Creek on the US side of Lake Ontario, it's channel flanked by two piers as it enters the lake. One of the things you often see out there is someone fishing with chinook with gear meant for 10" trout. This night was no exception: a college student with 8 lb test line hung on a 6 foot long buggy whip hooked into a good-sized L.O. chinook, on the order of 25 lbs or so. The fish hit on the west side of the west pier, so it had the entire damn lake to swim in, which meant that the fisherman was about to lose a mess of line and the spoon tied on the end. So what did the salmon do ? It swam along the pier until it got to the tip, made a wide swing around the end, then slowly headed a ways up the channel between the two piers before settling down for a long tug of war. It was the first chinook the kid had every caught and I'm sure he was sure he had it all figured out.
 
#11 ·
You know, the way you guys carry on about steelhead fishing, I get the idea that, by never having fished for them, I must be missing out on something tremendous. I used to visit the Muskegon area in Michigan every few years to fish on the lake with relatives (living in Grand Rapids), and I'll probably try to get back up there to stay at the cottages next year for a week or so; are there any steelheads in that area during the Summer months, or am I going to be "subjected" to only fishing for smallies, panfish, and pike? I'd love to hook one of these fish!
 
G
#12 ·
There are some around, if you have a GL boat your chances rise. If you hit the Big Man. (about 90 miles away from the Mo')in July you stand a good chance of hitting a Skamania or two.

Send me a PM and I'll get you some local guide info.
 
#13 ·
Darned suckers!

Creeks are FULL of 'em. I figured the steelies would turn on to sucker spawn patterns, but the suckers LOVED it. Then I changed to a leech pattern, and no change. No matter what I put on, that was all that would hit. I must have caught well over 25! Am I glad I switched to barbless hooks for everything. The steelies don't get a chance - the suckers hit everything in sight! One guy hooked a steelie briefly, but it took off downstream, and that was the end of that. That was all of the steelie action today!

BobK
 
#16 · (Edited)
It continues ,still 0 for 17 after recent trip.

A nice 5 lb red horse sucker for my efforts though, for a few seconds thought it was a chromer.

No one has touched anything for the last week at this location which is considered one of Michigan's best for steelhead. Moral, steelhead are not easy, and one feels somewhat better when they know the fish were not at the location you fished unlike other species like trout which are normally always in the same river locations.

Weather was perfect, cloudy and rain, heavy at times. Water clarity three feet at least but still low. Water temp 54 degrees, air temp 48 degrees.

Fish that were there two weeks ago had moved up stream.

I.m not giving up but this is the worst I have seen Michigan in 23 years. talked to a michigan fisherman there and he agreed. He had checked with all of his LP contacts and all rivers are still slow.

Very strange and alarming for the first week of april. In some rivers the runs are over by the first week of april.

Lake temps are still cold low fortys and upper thirties depending upon location. But the warmer river water should have brought more fish in by now. All rivers are still low, due to the low rain and snow precipitatioin the last year.

Will now get ready for trout season, tying flies, I have more than enough for any steelhead that still may show. Heck I have enought steelhead flies for the next 5 years the way my fly walletts look.

Body ached the last two days from all of the spey casting I did on Friday.

But still a nice quiet day on a GL steelhead river.

Pray to the GLs steelhead gods for the runs to appear soon.

If not get your trout equipment ready. Streamer time is upon us for the hungry brownies !

PM Out


P.S. New flies (show girls) sunk well with the Rio T-14 sinking leader I like it !
 
G
#17 ·
They will have no choice but to appear. The call to procreate will be too strong to stop them.

Actually I have seen this pattern many times the last few years. Cold lake low H2O from the sky and cold air temps. All equal to a late run.

The Indy. streams are full of them, if one iknows where to look. Also heard good stuff on the PM, once again you need to be in the right place. I think the PM's problem has to do with all the bloody foot and boat traffic. That stuff puts fish down fast.
 
#18 ·
I'm an optimist...

Here in NY, the lake O. tribs are suffering from the same problems. To add insult to injury, we are now trying to get over a massive ice storm last Friday. Over 200K people without power, down to 65K finally, but still all of the schools are closed. The roads and trees ar in bad shape - I have at least 3 of the neighbors trees down in MY back yard.

But I think we are just going to have a late run this year.

Here's a good one - some bright boater asked what the state could do to improve the level of the lake (Ontario) so he could launch his boat easier! Apparently he flunked either geography, or logic!

BobK
 
G
#19 ·
Re: I'm an optimist...

BobK said:
Here's a good one - some bright boater asked what the state could do to improve the level of the lake (Ontario) so he could launch his boat easier! Apparently he flunked either geography, or logic!

BobK
The answer is simple, just run a hose out there and fill her up.:hehe: :hehe:
 
#20 · (Edited)
Sounds like I'm the 'only one' who didn't freeze his Paatoo off

this weekend. Cold (high 30's/low 40's) but only an occational puff of wind/squirt of rain. Took Aaron R's (Speybum) 'Rogue test patterns' out to give them their first real run on Sat. AM.

Started with a very large 'October Caddis' pattern and trashed the water for an hour with zip to show for it. Shifted to a much smaller caddis (almost looks like a woven perriwinkle, bead head, 'ruff' coller on a heavy short shank hook). In something like the next ten casts I had three fish. Two beached and released the third still has Aaron's fly firmly embedded in its jaw.

Desided to change locations (just across the river/tad up stream from where I was fishing and went back to a much smaller version of the first fly done on a single hook. Two more in just a few casts; beached and released. No beach here so the 'releasing part' with a 14' spey rod was a pain in the fanny. Hit one or two more fish that came un-pinned which surprised me.

Anyway, point is if you can get your hands on some of Aaron's flys the buggers are really effective .... and minor works of art.
fae
 
#21 ·
A friend is up in the Michigan LP gods steelhead country this week. I will have a very good truthful report by the end of the week.

I have been up there in this type of weather and it is not pleasant. The fish that are there are hiding under the wood and cut banks.

We will see.

PM Out
 
#22 ·
Kind of reminds me of a good story titled "Pickeral as Gothic Cathedral". Maybe we could rework the story enough to avoid copyright infringements and have a new flyfishing literary classic: Lets see "Red Sucker as Gothic Cathedral"? Naw-- How about: "Red Suckers of Notre Dame"?
"As the last light of day played across the spires of Notre Dame University, Hal gently flipped his favorite Red Sucker patern out one last time ...":rolleyes:
 
#25 ·
When my two sons were born in South Bend in 1981 and 1983 the river did not have steelhead and salmon coming up that far, only as far as the Bucanhan, Michigan dam. If they were I would have been fishing since there is some great water at Leeper Park with spawning gravel. Walking the river then I thought it would be good, but at that time there was only smallmouth to catch and lots of them.

Had it all to myself back then. Not another fisherman to be seen.

An old south bend retired fellow told me where and when to go.

PM Out
 
G
#26 ·
I know of 2 parties that were just on the PM. one over last weekend and the other 2 guys on Tuesday.

Weekend guys hit good fish each day, friends that went up tuesday saw fish but they had lockjaw, due to traffic.

Both reports as good as they come. Indy. streams are full of them, if you know where to go.
 
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