Conneaut Creek, Spring Steelhead, Ashtabula County Ohio, 4/6-9/2019

[wbranch]

Arrived Saturday at noon and fished the Conneaut. Good flow and water color. Not much action and worked hard to land four dropbacks 22"- 24". Many, many Redhorse suckers taking whatever fly I was using. These are not the kind of suckers we see in our SE PA streams. These are very big lake suckers coming into the rivers to spawn. Hardly any under 6# and mostly 8# - 10#. One initial spurt of action then just dead weight.

Sunday landed two adult, older dropbacks same size as Saturday and two 17" - 18" skippers. Monday fished the Ashtabula and just crushed mostly bright fish fresh in from the lake. Hooked over 20 steelhead, just a fantastic day. Lost count of fish landed after 12. Pictures when I get home and resize them.

 

[Dave_W]

Very nice! It's good to see a spring steel report. That first fish at the top of the row of pics is a real pig and nice colors.

 

[3wt7X]

Thanks for the report. Great looking steelhead! You must have been worn out in a good way after Monday.

 

[wbranch]

3wt7x,

Yes, it was an amazing day. I'd never fished the Ashtabula before and a fellow I know who lives in Conneaut, OH gave me directions, while I was driving, on exactly where to turn and where to park. I walked up river about a 1/4 mile and crossed at the tail of a long pool. There was a swift riffle there. I made ten casts and caught four steelhead. I finally quit at 6:30 because I was very tired as there is no place to sit down and I knew I was going to be exhausted by the time I got back to the car. I still haven't uploaded the pictures from my phone to my PC.

Interestingly I went back the next day all excited to crush them again. Well for whatever reason the stream was very stained and there was virtually no visibility. I fished very hard from 8:00 - 3:00, stopping only for half an hour to have a sandwich. I tried various nymphs, white zonkers, emerald shiners, black woolly buggers, various sizes and colors of trout beads and I only caught three fish all day. I assume all the fish I had caught the previous day bailed out of there overnight and were on their way to some upstream spawning gravel.

 

[ryansheehan]

Awesome! Love it, looks like a great trip.

 

[wbranch]

A couple re-sized pictures. Every fish was carefully revived and swam away strongly.

 

[GonnaFlyNow]

wbranch,

If memory serves me right, you keep killing it steelheading. On Conneaut, were you fishing close to the lake or up in the trib? Do you know these areas well? I am just wondering, I am not having much luck steelheading. I do have have some time off this week and might give it another try.

All the best,

 

[wbranch]

Gonna fly now,

you keep killing it steelheading

When I was fishing the Connie I was probably about two miles from the lake. I fish from the Route 20 bridge upstream to the Route 7 bridge, about a mile.

When I fished the Ashtabula I was also about two miles from the mouth. I do well because I know some good access points and I met a fellow who lives in Conneaut a few years ago and he was kind enough to take me to a couple of his spots.

If you are going up you might want to check the weather. The forecast for tomorrow (Friday) is 90% chance of rain & 54 degrees, Saturday 80% rain and 51 degrees. The Connie is running 290 cfs now which is ideal. I'm thinking of going back up one last time on Monday and fishing through Wednesday. If you are staying over I can give you a number for a motel just a few miles from Conneaut Creek. PM me if interested.

The Conneaut, unlike Elk Creek in PA, drains a pretty large watershed and when it goes up it takes quite a few days to drop and clear up. I looked at a web cam for Elk Creek this morning and the flow was good.

 

[PennKev]

That fish in the first pic looks absolutely enormous.

 

[dano]

Seems there's been good numbers of big fish this year in Ohio
Last week, a friend swung up a 14.5 pound buck (according to his scale)
I've had my share of 7-9 lb fish.
And, smallmouth are starting to show up.

 

[wbranch]

I might make one more trip on Monday if the Ohio streams don't get too much rain and get high and discolor.

 

[wbranch]

My buddy from NJ and I weny up last Monday, April 22, we fished half a day Monday and Thursday and 8 - 9 hours Tuesday and Wednesday. Nice weather, although very windy Tuesday, large numbers of dropback steelhead but also some pre-spawn fish. I hesitate to say how many we hooked because most will say "impossible". So I'll just say how we did fishing from 7 - noon on Thursday. I landed 14 and my buddy landed 17. All were between 22" & 25". Trout beads and an emerald shiner pattern fished dead drift and swinging were equally effective. Great trip and it will give me and my buddy something to think about until we get back in October.