VERMILION, Ohio - It was like hunting for fish, standing on a high-bank of the lower Vermilion River here and scanning for the telltale movements of big steelhead trout.
Polarized sunglasses are a must as you squint down into the gleaming sun-blasted current at midday, searching for telltale shadows and swirling fish. Once the gleaming rainbow-sided quarry are sighted, you wade in and start "chucking and ducking" with big streamer flies, trying to entice the sleek, powerful fish to eat. Or just get them mad enough to lash out at being disturbed.
Guide Chris Cutcher, of Toledo, proceeded to do just that one morning earlier this week, and he hooked up with a strong 31-inch-plus, deep-bodied, 12-pound-class male. Now Cutcher is a big guy - linebacker-size or better - and watching him take off downstream, chasing the big steelie as it stripped line off his reel, was reminiscent of a brown bear chasing a salmon in Alaska.
After a strenuous duel, the "bear" got the fish and Cutcher was grinning from ear to ear. "This is one of my top fish this season," he explained.
It wasn't the only fish - there was a fine eight-pound female "chromer," still bright from its initial run in from Lake Erie, some two-pound, two-year-old male "skippers," and more.
Although it did not turn out to be a 15 or 20-fish "big day," it certainly fell within Cutcher's 6 to 8-fish "good day" criteria. And that was for just a morning's efforts.
He estimates that the spring run on the Vermilion, which wiggles along the Erie-Lorain county line about 75 minutes east of Toledo, will continue another three weeks, maybe a month.
This time of year, Cutcher is seeking "dropbacks" - fish that are done spawning and slowly are sliding back down to the lake, or fresh-runs, still silver-sided and just in from the lake. Either way the fish are aggressive in mood and ready to slash at streamer patterns, which mimic minnow-size meals.
"A streamer to those guys is like putting a big steak in front of us," he said, summarizing his take on late-season steelheading. As the steelhead taper off, he noted, an angler should start finding smallmouth bass in his catch-and-release mix.
After yours truly landed one skipper, Cutcher just shook his head. "He hit that big honking fly. He hit that great big streamer.
"The routine in Ohio has been an egg fly with a nymph on a dropper underneath and a strike indicator." The latter can range up to bright three-inch floats. "I just use big gaudy streamers - give them something different. I've really gotten away from fishing eggs."
Cutcher started fishing the Vermilion right after ice-out, but noted that three weeks of high water shut down fishing. A period of springlike weather in March brought out steelheaders by the score, however, with the guide seeing shoulder-to-shoulder angling in some stretches that looked more like the Maumee River walleye run.
"It's been a tough year," he summed. He noted a "lot of poaching that went on last year" and stringers full of steelies carried off the stream - fish that were not released to return and be hunted again.
Too, he added, "the ice has just demolished this river." Many of the runs have changed, which leads to searching anew.
"Basically in spring you're looking for gravel. But in a couple of places it looks like a tornado has been through."
The Vermilion is the most western of Ohio's stocked Lake Erie steelhead streams. Next east is Rocky River, along Cleveland's west side, followed by a series of popular northeast streams east of the city - the Chagrin and Grand rivers, and Conneaut Creek, with smaller tributaries in between with good, if unstocked runs.
The Ohio Division of Wildlife began stocking the Vermilion in May of 2002 with 69,000 smolts. It has had a planting schedule of at least 55,000 smolts a year since with a new class of two-year-olds returning from Lake Erie each spring, along with older fish.
The Vermilion's "fishing zone" begins just upstream of State Rt. 2 at Vermilion and continues some 16 or so stream-miles to the dam at Wakeman on the main stem in Huron County, or a slightly shorter distance up the East Fork to the dam at Kipton in Lorain County.
"The popularity of this stream has grown so much," he noted. "On a given day you'll see [license plates from] Kentucky, West Virginia, Ontario. A lot of Michigan guys from the Detroit area come down because it's not a three-and-a-half-hour run, like up north."
Cutcher prefers a 10-foot, 6-weight Orvis fly rod and a Ross Big-Game No. 4 reel filled with floating level fly-line for use in what steelheaders call "chuck-and-duck" casting - small bits of pinch-on lead shot are used to weight down the fly offerings. Level line has less drag, and does not require constant "mending" to reduce drag in the current.
The guide uses a six-pound-test leader about the same length as the rod, with about two feet of four-pound tippet, pinching on just enough shot to take the fly down to the fish-zone. He puts the shot just above the tippet knot. He does not use a strike indicator, as do many steelheaders, preferring to closely watch the fly or the end of the fly-line to see "takes."
Cutcher ties his own flies, usually a variety of streamers - "white maribou is red-hot."
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On the walleye front, the jig-and-minnow action is underway in force along near-shore areas of western Lake Erie from Toledo to Port Clinton and beyond, and the stream-action on the Maumee River is excellent with a surge of new walleye upstream.
Maumee Tackle in Maumee is sponsoring its 17th annual walleye tournament on Sunday. For details call the shop, 419-893-FISH, or visit www.maumeetackle.net.
The Sandusky River at Fremont has fair walleye activity with white bass starting to turn up.
Joe Wietrzykowski reports excellent lakefront action at Luna Pier, just across the Ohio-Michigan line, fishing with worms for bluegills in shoreline channels. He said he also found largemouth bass very aggressive - "but you have to throw them back." Michigan bass season does not open for weeks.
First Published April 20, 2007, 10:08 a.m.
