Ontario Campgrounds

Bank More Bows!
By: Tyler Dunn   Tyler Dunn Guiding

The Great Lakes offers world class steelhead fishing throughout Ontario. Southern rivers such as the Nine Mile, Credit and Niagara offer world class numbers with a really good chance at a trophy. Northern tributaries flowing into Lake Huron and Lake Superior offer some of the most beautiful steelhead rivers in the world. Not only is the scenery breathtaking but the fantastic fishing is the perfect recipe for a trip of a lifetime. The following are a few baits with tips to help you catch more Ontario steelhead.

Bags
Roe bags are no doubt the most popular bait for spring steelies. Why? Because they work! I like to float fish with fresh, uncured roe. These bags are tied from loose eggs or sometimes I will cut and tie up chunks of skein. Juicy, skein bags tend to shine under high, dirty water conditions. A Steelhead picks up scent at 1 part per 8 million. The extra smell from gooey bags can quite often be the ticket for a stellar day compared to just an alright outing. Bags sizes is another variable river anglers stew about. There isn’t a perfect size. When I’m tying up roe bags for a day of steel heading along Superior’s tributaries, I rarely tie the same size and colour bags. Dime, nickel and every so often quarter sized bags are typical. I favour dime sized bags for Superior steel in hot pink meshing but on Huron I like bigger chartreuse bags. White, chartreuse and pink are all other colours of mesh I consistently use when I’m tying up roe bags for chrome.

Jigs
Marabou jigs are not doubt one of my favourite steelhead baits to use. I especially enjoy running them through the frog water, twitching my float every so often, looking for aggressive strikes. Dead drift these jigs through runs, riffles and pools. Implementing small twitches to your float when fishing jigs in cold, slow moving water often triggers reaction bites from steelhead. Twitching often turns steelhead on when they seem to be picky. A good tip is to tip your jigs with wax worms when fish are short striking or just being plain old finicky.


Beads
Bead fishing for steelhead is probably one of the newest trends throughout Southern Ontario. Beads imitate single eggs perfectly and are quite simply what the fish are eating during spawning periods. I was first introduced to bead fishing by Raven guide staffer and Hobie kayak fishing team member Jeff Walls. Jeff who runs NoMad Fishing Adventures had me out on the Nine Mile river opening weekend 2011. It was my first experience combat fishing and it was quite honestly a real eye opener. There was obviously a ton of fish around with no shortage of people around trying to catch them. We worked a small riffle that opened up into a pool on a bend not far from the parking lot. After a half hour or so and only one hook up, we decided to move down river. We were a few drifts into our new spot we were still struggling to put a fish on the bank when two guys stopped and starting drifting right where we previously had been. To my amazement these guys laid a beating on the fish. Over the next hour we watched these guys hook several steelhead and one mammoth brown trout. We caught a glimpse of what they were using and Jeff quickly through me over a bead. This was a peachy, kind of light orange 8mm bead that we pegged with a toothpick 2 -3 inches above the hook. We were both welcomed with immediate hook-ups and to this day I don’t know the colour pattern but I still have that bead. Rigging beads can be done several different ways. Paul Almanza from Anglers International (www.AnglersInternational.com) says “The best rigging is with either a "peg-it" or small Drennan float stop. You can also use a bead knot (run the line through the bead twice and do a few wraps around the loop and feed the line back through the bead), but you have to watch not to damage the line. The trick is to keep a short distance between the hook and the bead.” Paul went on to say “Trout beads work as a visual trigger and do great in clear or slightly off coloured water. The best colours are Glow Roe, Egg Yolk, Chartreuse and a variety of orange tones”.

Worms
A year round favourite of mine, worms either real or fake will put fish on the bank for you. Drifting worms after a heavy rainfall can work wonders when water is warm. Worms are being washed into the rivers and are drifting down aimlessly while steelhead are pick away at them as they pass. Often times a big dewy is the key but sometimes just a half a crawler will do. Typically I am fishing worms tight to bottom which is usually within a foot or less. I tend to use larger worms in stained water and smaller pieces for fooling trout during clear conditions. My shot is usually bulked above my leader with my leader clean unless I am fishing high water conditions. If this is the case, I will add some dust (small shot) on my fluorocarbon leader. Artificial pink worms or “pinkies” are a must have for steelhead. Wacky rig or thread the worm up the hook for the best results. I prefer to wacky rig them.

Flies
Running flies were something that always appealed to me even when I was just beginning to chase steelhead. There was just something about catching a chromer on an artificial fly that really appealed to me. Now running a fly has turned into one of my high percentage baits during certain times of the year especially in the St. Mary’s rapids. Rarely, do I ever only run one fly. My fly set-up usually consists of tandem flies with a short spread between them. The reason I like to keep my tandem rigs close is because steelhead have the tendency to wrap up in the line and I want to try and avoid any damage to the gills or eyes of the fish. Steelhead have which makes them susceptible to line and hook damage.

A black bead head stone fly above a smaller prince nymph is my confidence tandem fly rig. I’ve also taken some nice steelhead in late fall on woolly buggers. Often times, I will run a woolly bugger on days fish seem to favour marabou jigs.

If there is one thing I have learned over my years fishing steelhead across Ontario. It is to keep an open mind and listen to what people have to say. Soak up the knowledge from other anglers and enjoy what Ontario’s steelhead have to offer!