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Dfishinfool's Guide Service
Steelhead Fishing Reports
From "Steelhead Alley"
No B.S.
Ohio fishing reports and Pennsylvania fishing reports
compliments of licensed professional Steelhead fishing guide, Don Mathews and the staff of guides at
Dfishinfool's Guide Service.
Hi,
everyone. I hope your enjoying your summer and catching
lots of fish. Since I got home from Cape Cod I
have been staying busy. We are having a blast with
the farm pond bass. We now have a dozen private
ponds to guide on in NE Ohio. They are all stocked with
bass and one spring fed 11 acre lake also is stocked
with trout. We can use the hyde driftboat on a
couple of the ponds but most have manicured edges to
fish from. We also have a small private lake that
is loaded with carp that we can fish from my custom
Nitro 20' center console. With a stable 104" beam
and open raised casting decks the Nitro is a pleasure to
fly fish from. Admit tingly Carp on the fly is
relatively new to me. I have been earning a new
respect for this worthy adversary this summer. We
have guides available every day if your interested in a
warm water trip. As always our trips are all
inclusive. Spin or fly all rods, bait, flies and
lunch are included in the trip price. There are no
hidden costs.
Our
Garden
River salmon trip
is just around the corner. The Garden River is
located near Sault Ste Marie and it is the best of the
best when it comes to Great Lakes Pink and Chinook
Salmon. It is the trip of a lifetime. We still
have three open spots. The Passport requirement
has been relaxed so you can cross into Canada by land
with just a birth certificate. Give me call for
more info on fishing this Salmon paradise.
Here
in NE Ohio we are blessed to have so many near by
fishing opportunities. We want you to experience
all that Lake Erie has to offer. We are now
booking trips on Lake Erie for Walleye and Perch with
some of the best local captains. Trips will leave
from Ashtabula Harbor Ohio and the season runs June thru
September. You will fish on a safe comfortable
boat with a USCG licensed captain. Fishing has
been great this summer and prime dates are still
available. Give me a call for more info.
Lets
not forget the Steelhead. Ohio
steelhead fishing just keeps getting better and
better. Plus we are licensed o fish the
Pennsylvania steams
as well. Our steelhead guide season starts in October.
We have lots of prime available dates open this fall.
My guides know ALL of the streams on the Alley. If
the weather or fish throw a curve ball at us they will
know what to do. In these days of the internet
anybody can be a guide. If you want to fish with a
professional give me a call.
Steelhead school Fall
2008 Nov 7th, 8th, and 9th. Learn the secrets to
becoming a successful angler. Three days of steelheading
including lodging for only $350 per angler
We
are trying something new at this falls Steelhead School.
It will focus on fall fishing in Ohio and Pa. We
will not be covering the NY streams as at our past fall
schools. Expert fly tier and Guide Mark DeFrank will be
helping me teach fly tying at this falls Steelhead
School in November. He is available to guide
steelhead and trout anglers also.
5-03-08 A big late season Steelhead Trout in Ohio
5-06-08 Ohio Steelhead Fishing Report
Well our steelhead season is just about over.
There are still a few fish around but I'm calling it
quits for the spring. A couple of the other guides
will still be fishing this week. The rivers will start to
fish again today but the fish are on their way out. It
was a great spring season and I want to thank my staff
of guides for all the hard work they put in making sure
your trips were successful ones. It was our
busiest spring ever fishing Ohio in the spring and we
batted 1,000. Every angler landed a fish. We
are looking forward to a great fall season. There
are still openings for the Garden River Trip in
September. This is the best fishing destination I
have ever experienced and its a great group of guys to
enjoy it with.
FishTheGarden.com
In
October its back to "Steelhead Alley". Our staff
of NY and Pennsylvania licensed guides will be ready
when the mutts come home. We still have lots of
prime dates available give me a call to book a trip. For
now it's vacation time for me. I'm getting the
boat all ready for some striped bass action out at Cape
Cod over Memorial day. I'll be up at the
Salmon River and over at the Eastern Pa limestone's in
the near future too. Plus there's always those
Lake Erie smallmouth, walleye and perch. So many
fish and so little time ..Grinning..!!
It's not going to be all play for me this summer.
There are going to be many changes to the website and I
have lots of work to do with the new fly suppliers.
Want to book a trip or just talk fishin..??
330-565-5457 Give me a call this summer. I would
love to hear from you..!! Good Fishin..!! Don
5-03-08 Guide Jeff Novak caught this Ohio
steelhead swinging flies
5-03-08 Another big Steelhead caught Fly Fishing Ohio in May
5-05-03-08
Lori on her first day of fly fishing with a big Ohio
Steelhead Buck
5-03-08 Rich caught this Ohio Steelhead on The Fly
5-4-08 Sunday Ohio Steelhead
Fishing Report The streams are all blown out
from Friday and Saturday's rains. We cancelled our
trips today due to the high water. We got blown
off the stream on yesterday but managed to have a banner
morning. I had Rich and Lori from Maumee, Oh over
for the weekend. It was Lori's first day of fly
fishing and she got a few real nice Ohio steelhead. Erma joined us and Guide Jeff Novak helped out. It
was a fun day and they kept me busy netting fish. We
found mostly drop backs but they were on the feed and
took the fly well. Lots of big males around and
they are sparing for the few remaining hens.
5-02-08 Ohio Fishing Report
Awesome day of Steelheading in Ohio. Water temps
dropped 10* this week and it has prolonged the runs a
bit. It was a great day to fish. No one was out
and there was a bunch of fish around. Mostly drop
back males with a few fresher hens mixed in. Lots
of bonus smallmouth and Ohio bonefish (Suckers) in the
stream as well. Jeff said he had several fish over 11
lbs on his scale today. It was definatly a big
fish day. I'll get up Jeff's pic's as soon as I
get them. Fish were hot today and tube flies on
our custom tungsten sink tips produced some bone jarring
strikes. Man you gotta love it when a 12 lb male
slams the fly so hard you almost loose the rod. I
must admit now that I have drastically scaled down the
sizes of my tube fly patterns they are producing much
better. I'm still not ready to give up my nymphs
and eggs but there is a time a place where swinging the
tubes can be a blast. Today was one of those days.!!
Good Fishin..!! Don
4-27-08 Tim with a big Ohio buck taken on a size #14
caddis fly
4-27-08 Match the hatch for success. Bug I found on the
stream today pictured next to one of my #14 Biot nymphs.
4-27-08 Pictured is a Rock Caddis I found today in
Ohio. Notice how bright green the belly is in the bottom
photo
My
#14 Rock Caddis fly fooled them today
4-27-08 Ohio Steelhead Fishing Report
I ended my day on the stream looking into a hole that
had about 50 mint chrome steelies in it. We had
ten minutes before we had to leave. So we tried one of
guest Tim's secret Anise -Vaseline sponge's on them. I
rigged the huge bright pink bait up on one of our fly
outfits. Next I added 6 oz's of lead to get the thing to
sink. The secret sponge wasn't in the water ten seconds
and a big buck swam up and took it. Unfortunately he
swiped the bait without getting hooked. This is
testimate to the power of smell in a steelheads world.
Fish smart enough to resist a live shiner drifted
repeatedly by them but unable to resist a new strange
smell smeared on a huge bright pink sponge.
Lets not forget these fish find there way back to their
home stream by relying only on their incredible sense of
smell. Anglers in the know often add scent to their
offerings. Anyhow, I ended up with a whole jar of
Tim's secret anise scented bait sponges. My truck
may never smell the same again..Grinning.. Fishing
was great the last few days in Ohio. Lots and lots
of fish and we managed to keep away from the crowds. Water was very low and
Ultra Clear. Forget about anything bright and
flashy when it like this. We had great success
matching the hatch with small #14 nymphs fished on 4X
tippets. Caddis were coming off the stream today
and that's what he fish wanted. We have been
targeting both the holes and the gravel. Swinging
flies on the gravel and high sticking nymphs on
indicator rigs thru the holes has paid off for us. Most
of the fresher fish are coming from the holes and we did
good Saturday fishing the deeper runs with Emerald Shiners and
fresh eggs on the spinning outfits. The gravel
flats are covered with big pissed off males but most of
them have seen it all by now and are tough customers. Small well presented flies
are what it takes. Use heavy tippets or big flashy
flies and your just lining them in the low clear water.
4-27-08 Scott kept me busy netting fish all day in Ohio
April
Vermillion River Ohio Chromer
4-27-08 Ohio Steelhead Fishing Report- continued-
They are calling for rain tonight and a cool down over
the next few days. This is good news because the warm
water was really starting to stress the fish out. We
will have to wait and see if we get enough rain to blow
the streams out. They are calling for less than
1/4 inch so I think we will be OK. This cold
weather will prolong the fishing for at least a week or
so. We have openings all week if any body is
interested in a guided trip in Ohio. Good
Fishin..!! Don
Sorry
if you don't see your picture here yet. I'm
working on getting the photos from my other guides and I
will post them here as I get them. If you took
pictures with your camera and would like to see them
here e-mail them to me. Everybody should have their trip
picture CD's now. If you don't let me know. Good
Fishin..!! Don
Mike
with a bonus Vermillion River smallmouth on the fly rod
4-25-08 First time fly fishers in Ohio
4-26-08 Ohio Fishing Report We started
real early this morning to be sure to get the spot I
wanted. To my surprise there were not many people
out fishing today. We had a great day..!! We had
nine anglers on the streams today. I had three
first time fly fishers with me and they were all good students.
Everybody ended up landing fish with both fly and spin
gear. We were fishing a hole with lot of wood in
it and it was challenging getting the fish in before
they got wrapped in the trees. We had some great fights
and the fish gave us some real good jumps. We ran
emerald shiners and fresh egg sacs on the spinning gear.
We mixed up the fly patterns a lot but eggs and nymphs
seemed to produce best.
4-25-08 Squeeze that tail tight or he will wiggle
away
4-26-08 First day of fly fishing
4-26-08 Proud dad and 12 yr old Emma with her first
Steelhead taken in Ohio
4-25-08 Nancy with one for the hair dresser
Tim
matched the hatch for success on this big Ohio Steelhead
4-25-08 Ohio Steelhead Fishing Report
We had four guides on the water today. We had a
large group of fly fishing guys and gals from Kentucky
out fishing today. Most of them had been with us
before so it was an easy day. For the most part we just
netted fish and we netted a whole bunch of them..!!
Fishing was very good on some of the Ohio streams.
Its all about water temperature now. Some of the
Ohio streams are too warm to get any more fresh fish but
thee are dropbacks on all of the streams.
4-25-08 A fresh Ohio hen taken fly fishing in Ohio
4-25-08 Tom shows off a nice Hen he caught high
sticking nymphs in Ohio
4-25-08 Ohio
Steelhead Fishing Report - cont.- On some streams
there are quite a few fish around and many of them are
fresh from the Lake. Yes I said fresh from the lake. You
see a few of our Ohio fish run late each spring. Most
will run in December thru March but there are always a
few that are late for the party.
Here in Ohio we stock fish who's parents were wild fish
from the Little Manistee watershed in Michigan. I
have fished the Little Man many times and it is a cold
water stream. It is cold enough that the salmon start to
run it in July and August. A couple of years ago I
hooked three Salmon in the Little Manistee River then
went to see the fourth of July fireworks in Ludington.
The Little Manistee never gets as warm as our
Ohio streams already are this spring. Most of our
streams are now in the mid sixties. Many of the wild
fish in the Little Manistee river are just now making
their spawning run. It was much to cold for them to
spawn in March. Their Ohio offspring tend to
run about the same time as their parents did.
Problem is some years they find our Ohio streams to
warm. Their biological clock is telling them its
time to spawn but the water temps are too high to run
the stream. So the fish enter the coldest stream they
can find. Often the warm water stresses them out
so they don't run far upstream. Dropbacks males
coming downstream mix in with these fresh fish and the
action can be hot if you find one of these pods. They
tend to move around a lot and will not tolerate much
angling pressure. Spook them and they head for the
holes. So put on your walking shoes and you might
just be rewarded with a spring steelhead bonanza. Good
Fishin..!! Don
Nice
weather, big fish, good company, Ohio Steelheading
4-25-08 a nice Ohio steelhead taken on the fly
4-23-08 Another great day in the buckeye. We
found a bunch of fresh fish and the crowds were slim.
Had a bit of rain but for the most part it was a
beautiful day. We got fish high sticking the holes
and swinging flies in the shallows. A assortment
of dime bright fish and beat up male warriors. We mixed
the flies up a lot today but egg patterns seemed to
produce best. All Ohio streams are low and clear and
fishing. Some better than others. Good Fishin..!!
Don
DOUBLES..!!!!!!
4-22-08
Ohio Steelhead Fishing is hit or miss right now.
Warm water has most fish dropping back. We hit the
lower Grand for a few hours this morning and we found a
bunch of fish. Most were drop backs but they took our
flies well. The water 63* this morning and great care
had to be used to revive the fish. It will be over son
if we don't get some cooler weather. Good Fishin..!! Don
4-21-08
I had the same two guests from yesterday this morning.
After a day of floating for drop backs on the Grand
yesterday, I decided to go looking for some fresher
fish. It was time to put on our walking shoes. I
compared the water temperatures from all of the streams
and noticed one river was almost 10* cooler than the
rest. So we loaded up the trucks and took a drive.
We struck silver...!!!! Things started out a
little slow with just a few old beat up fish on gravel.
I was scouting around when peered into a deep hole.
I couldn't believe what I saw. Fish lined up like
soldiers. At first I thought , No way, They
have to be suckers. Then one moved and I saw that
un-mistakable chrome flash. In no time I had my two
guests high sticking nymphs through them. We hit dime
bright fish that were in Erie yesterday. Hungry
un-pressured chromers full of fight. Some jumped
three or four feet into the air when hooked.
We found the same scenario in every hole in that section
of river. Literally hundreds of chromers. Best
part of the day..?? No one else was there and we
had them all to ourselves. Life is good sometimes.. Good
Fishin..!! Don
4-21-08 Chromers in Ohio
4-21-08 Another late season Ohio chromer
Finding cooler water paid off with fresh fish.
For More "steelhead Alley"
Fishing reports Click here
Let's Go Fishin..!!
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