“This Isn’t A Smallmouth”

Sometimes I just have to laugh on the river. For the last few weeks I’ve been using the 8wt rod hoping to catch some early steelhead. And during this time I have had at least a dozen strikes by small smallmouth bass. It seems as though these 6” fish can’t get enough of the woolly buggers I’ve been tossing. What I laugh about is almost everyone I’ve hooked has flown out of the water and landed 5’ upstream. For me at least, being gentle with a hookset using an 8wt is just not possible. Since a small fish can’t put any resistance on such a big rod, the fish flying upstream puts slack into the line. I’ve lost more fish from this than I care to remember. So, I just laugh and move on, knowing there’s a steelhead with my name on it somewhere.

This past week, the weather was great, and the water was in good shape. There had been reports of some steelhead being caught in the Ohio tributaries, so I was feeling confident. I hit my favorite spot with thoughts that I was going to hook into my first steelhead of the season.

The first hint of fall color on the trees is a good indication that steelhed are making their way 

into the Northeast Ohio rivers

True to form, within the first half hour I had four light strikes. In fact, I launched one the smallies into the air covering about 10’, a new personal best. Continuing to move downstream, hitting the deeper pools, I was swinging a white woolly bugger when I felt that unmistakable tug. The first thing that came to my mind was “this is not a smallmouth”. And I was right. On the end of my line was a hot steelhead that did not want to give up. It put three good runs on me, moving from the tail to the head of the pool. At one point I thought it wrapped me around a downed tree. In the end, the 8wt did the job. A very thick, 23" chromer came to hand. From the looks of it, it has been in the river a little while. Red is starting to appear on the gill plate and along the lateral line.

The first steelhead of the season. Thick and feisty.

You can’t catch a second steelhead until you get your first. It’s always good to get the first one of the season in the net.

Go out and fool a fish!