Steelhead Colors and Lampreys

Here is a beautiful Spring Conneaut Creek male steelhead with great spawning colors. Females like other animal species are not as spectacular in color, but never the less are beautiful in my eyes. Spawned out males will not stay around long hanging out with the guys. Instead they pack-up and head back to the lake. Many of them get beat-up by other dominant males while competing to fertilize eggs. Unfortunately all their spawning efforts are for not, Ohio’s rivers do not have the right conditions needed for eggs to hatch and fry to survive.

Unlike salmon, these fish do not die after spawning. Spawners return to Lake Erie and if they're not caught by a boat fisherman will return the following year and repeat the spawning cycle.

Unlike spawned out males, females will take their time recovering in the lower river from their hard spawning efforts. They want to eat just about anything that looks eatable too regain strength and while doing so will start changing their colors to a mirror like silver.

Because they are so silver often they're mistaken by new comers to the sport as a fresh fish coming into the river to spawn. To identify a spawner, you need to examining its tail. The fish will usually look thin and skinny too. If you see noticeable damage, it was causes from fanning on rocks and/or slate. If the tail is deformed and does not look normal, it's a spawner. The good news is, usually before the fish returns in the following Spring, the tail will have healed and repaired almost back to noral.

A spawned-out female is eager to eat and therefore is easy to catch. When you set a hook on one of these fish, expect several spectacular jumps and long runs.

Gene, a great fisherman and client from Oregon fishes his home waters with a fly, spey and float rods. This day he's using his 8 wt fly rod to get the job done.

Gene holds a very nice 10 lb Rocky River steelhead that he tricked into biting a Trout Bead. I was so impressed with his clever way of pre-tying them; I’m now doing the same. His 2-beads setup is very effective off the end of his fly rod and would not be approved by the fly fishing purist. After tying several different color combinations, he wraps them on a piece of cardboard to keep them tangle free. This allows quick color changes and you’re back fishing in a few minutes. Look for instructions on future postings.

The scar you see on the side of Gene's fish is from a lamprey. Lampreys in the Great Lakes claim the lives of many steelheads every year. Ohio combats the lampreys by treating their river systems with a very expensive chemical, TFM which is manufactured in Europe. The chemical kills the lamprey without killing the ecosystem and other aquatic life, so I'm told. To read more about the Great Lakes lamprey Click Here.