December 17, 2020

In late fall and early winter steelhead trout are the highlight species targeted by anglers along the Rocky River and other area streams. The Rocky River and other area streams are in good shape currently but there is precipitation in the forecast so weekend conditions will depend on how much we recieve.  To monitor the most recent river water level and temperature you can check the following link: <Rocky River flow gage data><Chagrin River flow gage data> <Rocky River NEORSD station with turbidity>.  Shadow, Ledge and Judge's lakes were stocked with trout last Wednesday and Wallace and Ranger lakes will be stocked tomorrow (details offered below).  Lake Erie anglers are primarily targeting steelhead and walleye along the shoreline.

The Rocky River and other area streams are in good shape today but there is precipitation in the forecast in the coming days so weekend conditions will depend on how much of that we recieve. I'd advise anglers to keep an eye on the flow gage data to determine the trend in flow. Anglers this week have been doing well for steelhead on the Rocky and Chagrin rivers, in particular.  Most fish have been caught in deeper holes spread throughout the watersheds. With the clearing water soft and hard salmon egg mimicking beads (8-12 mm), small (1/32-1/64 oz) jigs tipped with maggots or live minnows under a float will hace been working best.

Steelhead prowl the Cleveland Lakefront all winter and can be found off the rocks at Edgewater and breakwall/rocks at E55th/E72nd areas, the pier at Wildwood Park and Wendy Park at the old Coast Guard station.  An abundance of baitfish has been hampering the bite in these areas at times.  Casting a spoon (ie 2/5 oz Little Cleo or KO Wobbler) or spinner (ie 1/8 oz Vibrax or RoosterTail), or drifting a 1/32 or 1/64 oz marabou jig tipped with a waxworm or a few maggots under a float at these locations are a good bet for connecting with a steelhead trout.  Walleye fishing in these lakefront areas has been tougher than usual this all season from shore after dark.  Walleye anglers typically do best casting Perfect 10 and other shallow running stick-style crankbaits and lipless rattle baits.

Lat Wednesday we stocked 1,500 lbs of trout as follows:  Shadow Lake (800 lbs), Ledge Lake (650 lbs) and Judge's Lake (150 lbs).  Wallace Lake and Ranger Lake are scheduled for trout stocking tomorrow. The majority of the fish were 1-1.5 lb rainbow trout, but a good  number of brook, brown, golden rainbow and trophy rainbow trout up to 7 lbs were in the mix.  A fair number of trout remain at Wallace Lake and Ohio & Erie Canal from stockings in October.  Note: the daily limit at Wallace Lake is 3 trout/angler and the limit at the canal is 5 trout/angler.  The trout can bite well on colorful dime size balls of Power Bait dough, a waxworm ot two on a small marabou or hair jig and smaller spoons and spinners. 

Cleveland Metroparks Boat Ramp updates.  This year the Lakefront Reservation park manager is going to try something different and leave one set of docks in at Edgewater boat ramp all winter for the convenience of late season anglers and waterfowl hunters (the others docks were pulled last week).  Docks at Gordon Park (E72nd) and Wildwood boat ramps were pulled for the season this week, but there are permanent concrete/metal docks there year around. Launch ramp parking tags are not being sold currently and will not be enforced again until Spring of 2021. Also please note that the fish cleaning station at Gordon Park (E72nd) boat ramp area has been winterized and closed for the season, and will re-open in March or April of 2021.

Photo Release Waivers are now Required for Fishing Blog Photos (and are fast and easy to complete online).  Photo release waivers are now required for any fishing blog photos where individuals are identifiable.  The good news is it only has to be done one time per person (and then it's good for any subsequent photos) and there's a super easy and secure online form to do it through Smart Waiver that takes only about 30 seconds to complete.  So please use this link to complete the waiver if you send in any images for there report: <Smart Waiver link>.  Sorry for the slight inconvenience and THANK YOU for all who have contributed in the past to make this report a fun and personal offering!

If you have a photo that you would like to contribute to the fishing report, or if you have any further questions regarding fishing in the Cleveland Metroparks, you may contact Aquatic Biologist Mike Durkalec at (440) 331-8017 or  [email protected] .

Tight Lines,

Mike

 

Dan and his grandaughter had a successful outing for recently stocked rainbow trout at Ledge Lake (photos courtesy of Dan Kubicek).





Aubrey amd her dad caught some fine steelhead on a smaller creek when the main rivers were elevated and muddy, and Mike caught a colorful bruiser buck steelhead (photos courtesy of Joe Ward).



Mike caught this gorgeous buck brown trout in the Rocky River.  It's one of the nicer browns I've ever seen from a local stream! (photo courtesy of Mike Cottom).



Martin also caught a bonus brown trout while steelhead fishing this week while fishing at Wildwood Park.  The pretty trout hit a pink spawn sack (photo courtesy of Martin Pittak).



Michael shared "I landed this beautiful 22 inch Steelhead hen on the fly on Thursday afternoon. She inhaled a white Zonker on a drift then put up a heart pounding battle on my 7 wt rod. It was a beautiful day on the Rocky River!" (photo courtesy of Michael Bartunek).



Brian caught a pretty brook trout at Ledge Lake (photo courtesy of Brian Zaptocky).



Joe caught this scrappy steelhead while fly fishing the Rocky River yesterday (photo courtesy of Joe Compton).





It paid off for Greg to keep the boat in the water into early winter, as evidenced by the chunky steelhead and walleye he caught off Cleveland this week (photos courtesy of Greg Somerlot).




Dale shared a story about perserverance paying off on the river this week  "After fishing all day Friday and going 0/3 with fish being caught all around me, I went 3/3 in two hours on Tuesday. All three caught and released healthy. Flow and clarity were perfect, but it wasn’t as “fire” as it was on Friday. Caught these on dime sized pink spawn sac. Everybody said they were only biting pink. I must’ve snagged bottom 10 times, lost more bait to the river than fish. Can’t get frustrated though, they don’t call it the Rocky River for nothing!" (photos courtesy of Dale Novotny).



Eusebio shared "Caught at Shadow lake on 12/11/20, I used Berkley gulp alive 1" Minnow (chartreuse) no bobber. I'm from Akron Ohio." (photo courtesy of Eusebio Rodriguez).



Mikale caught this beautiful 30" buck steelie on the Rocky this week (photo courtesy of Mikale Mosack).







Walt and friends have been making some nice catches of rainbow trout at Shadow Lake this week with a few brown and brook trout in the mix too.  They've been getting them on Power Bait and spoons (photos courtesy of Walt Gedeon).



Miles caught this dandy buck steelhead in the Rocky River (photo courtesy of Miles Boozer).






Barnabus reports he did very well on the Rocky River last week drifting orange and chartreuse 10 mm soft beads, incuding catching his two personal best steelhead- both at 28" (photos courtesy of Barnabas Bakai).



Chris caught this surprise coho salmon in the Rocky River this week (photo courtesy of Chris Migchelbrink).

Nick has been doing great lately drifting marabou jigs under a float (photo courtesy of Nick Kosiba).



Ken shared some good info gleaned from his time on the water "Passing on some observations from this past week.  I’ve noted that a majority of anglers pass up holes because they believe these have been fished out.  This past Saturday, I went down to one of the most popular stretches of the Rocky River at 10:30 AM and there wasn’t a soul in sight.  I assumed that it was worked over pretty well beginning at sunrise.  Rather than leave, I worked almost every stretch of the few hundred yards, back and forth, and caught nothing.  Another angler came in, knew where he wanted to be, and caught two steelies immediately - in the one spot that I hadn’t tried!  I kept at it, changing offerings every so many drifts, and eventually hooked up with this 28” hen on a 1/32 oz. orange-headed black marabou jig tipped with a white troutworm.   I used the same technique yesterday in another stretch of the river and found that the fish wanted peach-colored soft beads.  I would bet that many anglers miss a lot of fish because they don’t give the fish what they really want.” (photo courtesy of Ken Stein).





Fred and a friend had fun on the Rocky River this week (photos courtesy of Fred Mieser).




Sean had a successful outing on "The Rock" on Saturday (photos courtesy of Sean Perron).




Ted shared a few pics from the Rocky on Tuesday (photos courtesy of Ted Choukalas).



Quite a few colorful brook trout were mixed in with the fish stocked recently.  This is among the only opportunities to catch this species in Ohio short of joining an expensive private trout club.  Brook trout are among our only native salmonids (tout and salmon family of fishes).











Nick's pictures from this week speak for themselves!  He caught lots of quality trout at Ledge and Shadows lakes on jigs- including a handful of brook, brown and trophy rainbow trout.  And he capped the week with some quality Rocky River steelies like the one in the bottom photo (photos courtesy of Nick Zarzeczny).



Elizabeth shows off a brute chrome hen steelhead.  This fish ignored spawn drifted through the hole multipe times then hit a twitched 1/64 oz marabou jig on the first drirt.  Sometimes making a change can pay off.