Silver Bullets!!!

Got Chrome?

 With the warming of lake Michigan waters in early June, the Skamania cruise along the piers gorging on Alewives. The steelhead are often in the top 6 feet of water and are active feeders. Sometimes unsuspecting perch fisherman tangle with these silver beasts to be left with an empty spool and a feeling of just being on the receiving end of a hefty butt whoopin.

My son Jared fighting his first ever steelhead. Skamania Mania is setting into his brain!

These chrome beauties are the result of the Indiana stocking program that was escalated in the mid 80's. Michigan City harbor was where these torpedo shaped steelhead first started to cause anglers to give chase. In the early days many fish were taken on a bobber with a crawler or and orange KO painted orange on the front and back pulled in with a VERY fast retrieve.

Later on Michigan joined Indiana in stocking the St. Joesph River in a joint effort with Indiana and started planting the Big Manistee as well. Like all fish in the Great lakes that end up traveling upstream, some will stray. The Kalamazoo River gets large numbers of summer steelhead despite not getting any fish planted. Wisconsin has also been very active on the west side of the lake and it is rumored that many fish caught along the Michigan shoreline are of the Wisconsin plantings.

Before entering the rivers the fish congregate for a few short weeks and cause the piers all along west Michigan to get more fishing pressure than the Salmon in the fall. It will be a long while before these fish spawn and have hearty appetites. The fishing can get cramped and with winds often over 10 mph and waves coming in off the lake a traditional bobber, or slip bobber set up is not a good choice.

The set-up

The rig is a little different than most people are used to when using a slip bobber. On the main line slide a barrel swivel followed by a bead, the slip bobber and another bead. Then you tie a snap swivel on the bottom then attach a 1 oz. pyramid sinker. The snap swivel is used so when walking with the rods on you way to and from the pier you don't have the lead bobbing all around causing twisted lines. On the top swivel you tie 3-4 ft of 8-10 lb line to your hook. I use a size 4 treble hook. I find if you have two barbs in the shrimp and one exposed, you really don't need to set the hook, the fish does it for you. The bait is simple cooked cocktail shrimp! I use bait frozen, it thaws within a few short minutes. I use the scent when the shrimp has thawed if the bite is slow.

Netting these fierce fighters can be a challenge in the rocks and sometimes waves.

The way it works is the pyramid sinker anchors in the sand and stays stationary will the bobber drifts up your line until it gets to the surface pushing the hook with the shrimp before it. You will have a well anchored suspended bait at whatever depth you set your leader to. The fish bites and the bobber goes down just like normal.

Frozen cocktail shrimp with some scent if it's been in the water too long.

Make sure you have your rods secured, when these fish hits it may be a gentle tug and the bobbers slowly goes under, but most times it is a freight train at full speed. Your rod will double over and make sure the drag is set on the light side because your drag will scream. People do loose rods if they don't pay attention.

An easy home made rod holder, Just wedge it between the rocks and your ready to go.

I like this spot because of the pre-cut notches where my rods fit perfectly!

A nice steelhead about ready for the net, nice shot of the bobber set-up above the water.

Make no mistake about it, summer run steelhead are crazy in the extreme. The take off on blistering run, are almost guaranteed to make several acrobatic leaps and jumps and can tangle other lines in mere seconds. if someone yells fish on, be prepared to reel your poles in to avoid a nasty tangle. It seems that the fish have an uncanny talent for finding the lines of other fisherman and people swear they do it on purpose. Netting can be a huge challenge when the seemingly spent fish is slowly swimming near the submerged rocks and WHAM, they flip a switch and it's GAME ON! If your lucky they will jump, many fish are lost to the rocks in that last ditch effort.

Jared with his first steelhead.

Skamania are a pretty fish! Their back is usually an olive color to a blueish green with the typical spots that adorn rainbow trout along their back. They have less spotting than the normal steelhead and some can seem to have almost none at all. The sides are the color of polished nickle while lacking the pinkish to lateral lines of the other steelhead. Their chrome sides blend into the white of purest snow on their bellies. These amazing fish must have liquid metal for blood because the chrome coloring can trickle down their tails, or is it that they swim so fast the color bleeds?
 

They have small teeth like many small needles for holding bait fish in their jaws.

A nice steelhead in the 90 deg heat on Holland Pier.

Orange K.O. Wobbler

If watching a bobber gets boring, casting hardware can be effective. Orange is the key color!

Most of the fish seem to be in the 8-12 lb range. Some are a little smaller, but there are some that can push the 20 lb mark. The big ones can be troublesome to land because they add a little more strength to these agile warriors. So tie your knots well, check your line for frays or nicks from the rocks because they will make for a short battle. 

Jared with another nice steelie caught while it was still dark.

 The best fishing occurs in the early morning twilight, just as the sun is coming up right before it pops over the horizon. The bite can stop and start with a moments notice. Just this last Friday I was standing on the pier with my polarized on watching the water when I saw a small school of steelhead chasing a school of alewives, they were darting into the bait fish and heading right for my sons bobber, they whizzed by us on the pier and I shouted a school was coming down the pier then my sons second rod and our closest neighbor's started bouncing and the fish were jumping. Sometimes bait fish will jump out of the water or you can spot a steelie porpoise.

Me with a typical Skamania, they are all beautiful and completely nuts!

I wish you the best of luck if you cross lines with the most psycho fish in all of the Great Lakes

They call it fishing, not catching

There are so many things that can go wrong when fighting a large steelhead or salmon. One may be an awesome fisherman and be blessed with amazing luck, but still lose as many fish as they catch.
Do not be discouraged it happens to the best of us!
Today I took my son out again today to try and catch him a steelhead. I did less fishing and more spotting to increase his odds. He is only fourteen and does not have a great sense of urgency when it comes to fishing. He loves it, but he doesn't always get it. I was even handing him my rod when he needed to tie up. He did hook into a few fish, but none made it to the shore.
I fared a little better landing 2, the first being a small male steelie. I mean it was small by steelie standards, maybe 18 inches. He put on one heck of a show and if he had some size I would have never won that battle. He wrapped himself around my son who was fishing downstream of me and I got closer I realized that I was lucky to not have broken my rod when my son grabbed it with the fish on it and it started wrapping around him.
The other fish I did land was a smaller sized hen who took my fly on the swing after it passed a bed in a deep run. The strike and the battle was great considering her size.
I had several other hook-ups. My intention was to hand my rod off to my son, but every attempt was foiled before I could even hand him the rod.
Each time I stood there confused staring at the river trying to assess what went awry.
The first worthy encounter to mention was while drifting a nice gravel bed with several fish on it I had a visual on my egg through most of the drift and when I didn't it was because I noticed one of the fish open its mouth and suck my nuke egg in. In textbook fashion I set the hook downstream as the fish continued to shake its head as it drifted off of the back of the gravel. The head shaking was constant and I was sure that this fish was as good as landed. I yelled to my son to take the rod and the fish must have thought I told it to run for it's life instead. After several jumps well over three feet high, this chrome beauty made my drag sing as it headed back towards Lake Michigan. With one more jump after it's run the fish spit the hook back at me. I could do nothing but say sorry to the boy, because that was the kind of fish you just don't hand off to someone. Oh well, at least I didn't loose any tackle I told myself trying to make the butt whooping I just had not seem quite so bad.

While using the same exact nuke egg in the same exact area on the third cast before I lost the last fish I had another take. This one wasn't text book and I was not ready for it. I was trying to spot my fly in the drift as I noticed a torpedo shaped shadow rocket ahead. I felt a tug on my line and it started moving upstream. I pulled back hard and it made this beast go freaking nuts! It took it's first jump going forward as much as upward with a heavy head shake. I could see that my line was towards it's mouth. The fish took several more jumps each seeming more powerful and vicious than the last. The fish never realized that during one of the jumps it had broken my 6lb leader. It continued to make several more jumps and flips as I stood there with a slack line just watching. I could do nothing but smile and start to chuckle as I heard my buddy yell from across the river "What the Heck!" Although the whole ordeal lasted but maybe a few seconds at best it still excited me for more.
When I pulled my line in my leader was frayed. It could have been before I even made the cast, but I check my leader for frays and knots regularly.
Catching fish isn't always where the most excitement is. Most of my most memorable fights are one I had lost and I have lost tons. Just keep fishing and be grateful to be out on the water. If everything was easy to catch it wouldn't be as much fun.