steelhead trolling

[ml1987]

Has anyone tried trolling the mouth of the Rocky for steelhead or is it too early? I'd like to give it a shot, but have never done it before. I assume it would be pulling small cranks and spoons, but do people typically use the same jet setups as for walleye trolling? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Mike

[SteelEyes]

I'll preface this by saying I've never trolled outside the Rocky for steelhead, I troll for them at Conneaut in the NE Corner of the state. But the general rules should hold true.

It's probably still to early, although you never know. Some years they show up early, some years late. As a general rule, once the lake drops below 70 F and the river drops below 60 F the steelhead might start staging outside the river mouths. And a rain event where the flow comes up can cause them to run up the river. But we never really know when they show up until some adventerous souls get out there and try for them and are finally successful. Also, I've been seeing the occassional reports for a couple months of people getting them in the rivers.

This document mainly deals with the fish stocked by PA and NY, but holds true for OH fish as well. Lake Erie info starts on page 11.
http://ncc-tu.org/published/dat/grea..._steelhead.pdf

River data for the Rocky River, including temperature.
http://waterdata.usgs.gov/oh/nwis/uv?site_no=04201500

[leadmen]

little early for that I use small divers or spoons and use a fire line or power pro no larger than #10 lb test use a 12or 14 snap and have very good luck but check the water color semi to clear cloudy and the fish are slow to bite and will do live bait over lures hope this helps and after a good cold rain the next day is good as well