Fishing Articles — steelhead

The other day my phone dinged on the kitchen table and text stretched across the screen that read, “You are highly allergic to hard work.” It was from my pal Jack and was in response to the pictures I had sent him earlier in the day. The pictures were of me and my girlfriend Miranda. Some were of us on an Upper Peninsula river, our fly rods bent to the cork, and a few more were of a couple of fine male steelhead resting in our hands. It’s reasonable Jack was a bit upset. With the recent dire developments he’s...

Spring has finally arrived and with it, a load of fish that are eager to run our rivers on their annual spawning migration. Spring steelhead fishing has its share of challenges; from weather patterns that change on a daily basis, to unyielding angling pressure, spring steelhead can be a moody lot, to say the least. The spring season is the time to open the bag of tricks and employ tactics that will entice the fish to bite after they have seen it all. These three rigs are must-have items in the vest this time of year; let’s get into the...

The river rushes out of the mist-enshrouded forest as if emerging from a portal in time. The muted orange, yellow, and red of the trees merge into an impressionist painting. Wisps of fog drift over the water like ghosts. Beneath the spectral parade, king salmon jockey for position on spawning riffles. But kings are not what we’re after. A short walk below those rowdy kings, steelhead vie for feeding stations. The food being conveyed by the current is supplied by the salmon. The eggs—millions of free-drifting protein pills that fail to lodge in nests, all translucent at times, opaque at...

I was fighting something that was whipping my butt. It surged downstream, went skyward, and then raced upstream. It appeared to tire as it neared the boat. Wrong! It turned tail and ripped 50 feet of line from the reel’s spool. Finally, the exhausted salmon came to the boat where John DeLorenzo expertly netted it. She tipped the scales at 30 pounds, the biggest of the nine that I caught that day. What a day for my first trip on the Niagara River! A couple of months later, I returned to the Niagara. We fished the bar at the river’s...

Where: Upstate New York’s Niagara River Why: Good, consistent steelhead runs  When: Run begins in October and can persist into early June, but the best time spans from mid November through early May How To Get Here: Buffalo is the nearest major city, roughly a 30-minute drive from the Lower Niagara River. Direct flights from the West Coast aren’t common, but one-stop itineraries are easy to come by. All major airlines fly into Buffalo. For those looking to fly in through Toronto, that’s an option. Toronto is roughly 1:30 minute drive to the river.   Pautzke Bait owner Casey Kelley...