Spring Steelhead in Wisconsin
My friends John Beth, Dan “Doc” Zavadsky, and Dale Thompson hit the still-high waters of Wisconsin’s Michigan coastal streams on Thursday, 3/22/12 and found the steelhead in numbers. They also found spawning suckers in really serious numbers. The suckers relegated John et al. to egg flies, which they fished with real zeal. The water was still high and tannic colored, but the steelhead were in and accepting the fly. John took two for four hooked, Dale was two for two, and Doc was 2 for six. Quite a day. Of course, suckers eat eggs, too, and the guys probably caught 50 of them. Still, the suckers keep one’s interest high and one’s attention on what’s happening to the dead drifting egg fly.
If all holds together, weather-wise and water-flow-wise, I’ll get on the water next week for a couple of days. Nice fish like this only come a couple of times a year, and it looks like this will be a good spring for them.
A nice 30 inch female steelhead that John took early in the day.
John with a 33 inch male taken in later afternoon.