4/12/15 Small Stream Steelhead

What a beautiful day to fish for Steelhead. My dad and I took a trip to the Indiana tributaries of Lake Michigan. We fished Trail Creek, Little Calumet River, and Salt Creek all over the course of the day. Upon arriving at our first creek, it was still just beginning to get light. We couldn't see any fish and we were blind casting into deeper pools with no success. After a half hour or so, it got light enough that you could see fish in the creek. One laydown in particular was holding a lot of fish and these fish seemed very active. I quietly snuck in front of the laydown and threw my spinner across the creek and brought it back right in front of the wood. On my second cast, I had barely begun to move my spinner when I Steelie shot out from under the log and absolutely smashed my lure! I hooked it and the fish immediately turned downstream and stripped line to get back under the wood. I managed to put the screws to the fish and get it back upstream where it continued the fight with several jumps. I ended up tailing the beautiful female and getting a few shots before releasing her. Not long afterwards, I was fishing another laydown. On my first cast a big male came from under the wood and absolutely enveloped my spinner. I had him in a small space and had to work very hard to keep him from getting tangled around anything. As my dad attempted to net him, the spinner hooks got tangled in the net and with a little thrashing, the fish managed to leverage itself off and swim away. After that, the action slow considerably. Most runs we fished were absolutely full of smolts, so we kept moving to try to find some more adult fish. We saw quite a few but most were in full spawning mode and not at all interested in playing our game.
On our way back to the truck, I spotted two fish sitting side-by-side in a shallow run and decided to cast to them with a single egg under a float. After a few casts, one of the fish took the egg but I completely missed the hookset. After a few more casts, it was pretty obvious that they were uninterested. I was about to move on when a small buck moved up to within a few feet of the paired fish. I cast the egg out and let it drift past the two fish. As soon as the third fish saw the egg coming he went out of his way to gulp it down. I made a good hookset and the smaller, but incredibly lively male was dancing around the creek. After a few minutes I brought him to the net. He was an incredibly bright, beautiful fish of about 24 inches. He had nice red cheeks, a nice red stripe the whole length of his body, and besides my hook in his mouth not another mark on him. I pulled him from the net and lifted him for my dad to get a picture. As soon as I had him up, he must have sensed his opportunity and quickly wriggled free and escaped without getting his picture taken. It's a great picture in my mind but one that I unfortunately can't share with you.
Not long after that fish was gone, a pair of guys just upstream of me had a fish on. While watching, it was obvious that the fish was snagged in the back. After a short battle, they netted the fish, cut it's gills, put it on a stringer, and threw it back into the creek to bleed out. Now don't get me wrong, I have nothing against keeping what you catch and I often take fish home for the dinner table, but I personally feel like what these guys were doing was just wrong. I don't see why people resort to snagging when these fish are relatively aggressive and willing to take lures. I know nothing I could have said or done would changed anything but I wish people would fish ethically and take care of our natural resources.
After that somewhat sour note, we decided to change it up and head to another creek to find some different fish. Upon arriving, I set my dad up with the spinner rod and let him fish the best two runs first to see if any active fish were in the mood to play. He cast both runs for 15 or 20 minutes apiece and then turned to me and said "alright, show me how it's done." He handed me the spinner rod and within the first several casts I had a nice male absolutely destroy my lure. This fish put on quite the show with several runs and a few cartwheeling jumps. I also managed to get a little video of the tail end of the fight. After releasing that fish, we cast for another hour or so with no other opportunities.
We decided to eat lunch and head to the third creek to see if any fish were in it still. We hiked back into the woods and got in the creek to head upstream and back towards the truck. As we were standing in the water, we were approached by a man. He asked us if we were having any luck and if we had seen any Steelhead. He said something to the effect of "I was out looking the other day and I didn't see any fish." As if on cue, a Steelhead from somewhere downstream spooked and rushed past us heading upstream. I looked at him and said "You mean like that one?" It was pretty funny and the guy put his foot in his mouth after that. We continued upstream and before long I spotted a pair of fish holding underneath a bush on the edge of the creek. I cast my spinner into the water ahead of them and brought it almost straight downstream past the fish. When it went past them, the male Steelie rushed out and then darted right back into the cover. I repeated this cast with a slightly more aggressive response from the fish about 10 more times. Each time you could tell the fish was more and more agitated and before long on one of the casts he actually hit the spinner but didn't get hooked. After that, he refused to come back out of the cover again. The rest of the day was just a nice walk up a small creek occasionally spotting a fish but not doing much fishing.
All in all, it was a great day. The weather was beautiful, the fish were pretty willing, and I got to spend some quality time with my dad.