I'm back. many pics!

[Steve]

Back from 2 weeks on the Au Sable. Fishing was up & down but put in a lot of hours and managed some really nice smallmouth. Will have tons more pics to upload later but for now here's the two big fish of the trip. A pair of 20" 4-5lb smallmouth on back to back days last week.

 
 

[danotaylor]

Nice fish Steve! We're you fly fishing from the boat or spin casting?

When you have a sec would you mind pm'ing a little info of the fall movements of trout? Was planning to take my boys spin casting this fall on the Vermillion, Black, Rocky River's &/or Cuyohouga River's in northern Ohio. Not looking for local river knowledge so much as what are trout doing in the fall, type of water to look for (fast or slow flow) and any suggested spinner or hard body lure types. Thx mate!

[Regalblue]

Awesome!  Looks like a great time!

[lilscoots]

Very nice

[Rob S]

Love catching Smallmouth. Those bastards feel like you're pulling in a whale they fight so hard.

[jcunningham0295]

Very nice!!  Looks like you had a great time!!!

[Steve]

Danny there aren;t many real good trout streams at all in Ohio outside of the Mad river but even that is very limited. Unless you are talking about the fall Steelhead runs maybe?

Some more time on my hands so able to resize a few more pics to share. Lots more still to do but here are some more...



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

[danotaylor]

Great pics Steve...some nice smallies there...any walleye this time round?

Ok, so fall steelhead...is it their spawn run? Are online spinners and small crank baits gonna work or do I have to work out how to do spawn sacs etc?

[Steve]

No wallies this time. I do catch one or two of them every once in a while on the fly but they are not too common on the fly rod. Steelhead spawn in the spring, for Mi & Ohio you will usually have them spawning about middle of March through the 3rd week or so of May. Some of them come into the rivers in the fall though starting about the 3rd week of October. Some will come in behind the chinook salmon runs and eat drifting stray salmon eggs and many will end up overwintering in the river till the spring spawn so they can be caught in the fall. The good thing is fall run steelhead are much more aggressive than the spring runners because they are in the river to feed and don't have mating on their minds so the fall run fish will take a spinner much more readily than a spring steelie.

The Vermillion is the one I would suggest you target. I have fished some of the ones down there and while we have had luck on the Rocky river right outside of downtown Cleveland, the Vermillion seems to be the one that is a more consistant producer of steelhead. I know guys that go down and fish the Vermillion every year and sometime end up with 10-15 fish days on that one.

[danotaylor]

Thank you for your informative response Steve, I really do appreciate you taking the time to help educate me a little. I will look into the Vermilion for sure and make a trip out there with my son's this fall! Cheers mate 👍🙌