Big Day Ahead!

This Saturday, June 30, 10:00 AM-3 :00 PM(?) at the BackPacker's Shop, 5128 Colorado Ave., Sheffield Village, Ohio
Scott Rod and Ross Reels Demo Day, and trade in ANY old fly line and get $20 off any SA Mastery Line!
Plus a Warm Water Fly Fishing Seminar featuring Scott/SA/Patagonia Pro Jeff Liskay, Eric Lindstrom, and yours truly!

Spread the Word!

More OH Trout?

I received a group of photos from dog-friend, Buck Juhasz, updating the ODNR stream improvement project on Mac-O-Chee Creek in Logan County.  Mac-O-Chee Creek is a tribuatary of the Mad River and was straightened decade ago.  The stream was resored to a natural meandering state several years ago.  Juhasz reports that "weed growth has been good this year and a fair number of mayflies beginning to show up."  The stream has supported a population of brown trout for a number of years and Juhasz has caught a number of fish recently in the 16 inch range.

Natural Steelhead in Ohio?

Mike Durkalec, fish biologist for the Cleveland Metroparks sent this photo of juvenile steelhead that were captured in from one of the tributaries to the Chagrin River on the North Chagrin Reservation.  The park does annual water quality studies and routinely find good numbers of juvenile steelies in all the tribs entering park river.  Unfortunately, conditions during the summer- lack of flow and heat, limit the survival of the fingerlings, and no one is really sure how many survive. 

The East Branch of the Chagrin River, however, is year-round coldwater habitat and can hold fingerlings for survival over the summer until they can drop out to the main river and into the lake the following spring.  Once again, no one really knows how many fish come out of this system.

Another View

Here is a selection flies that I was given to use on the Restigouche.

Working Art

Sorry for the long absence.  Had a bunch of work related travel last month, plus a little fun stuff.  Did my first trip to the Gaspe area for Atlantic Salmon on the Restigouche.  As with many places, the early super warm weather had things out of whack.  Drop-back fish were all gone, first run was way upriver and spread out and the river was at July levels, so not a lot of activity with fresh fish.  Did get some sea-run brook trout, which were very interesting.

Classic fly patterns were the norm for the guides.  One of our party, John from Montreal, had quite a box of flies with him.  A bit hard to carry, but he was kind enough to share with everyone