April 4, 2024

***NOTE:  The Fishing Report Blog is updated weekly on Thursdays from September-May***  Rivers are elevated and muddy and a string of several dry days will be needed for the water levels to recede. Anglers can monitor the most recent river conditions at the following links: <Rocky River flow gage data> <Chagrin River flow gage data> <Rocky River NEORSD station with turbidity>. Cleveland Metroparks stocked a third round of 900 pounds of rainbow trout into the East Branch Rocky River on last week and is planning to stock the final round next week (details below).
 
The Rocky and Chagrin rivers are elevated and muddy and we will require several dry days in a row before the water levels recede and offer decent fishing conditions. Wise anglers will keep tabs on the flow data at the links above when planning a trip to the river. Dime to nickel size spawn sacks (trout or salmon eggs in chartreuse, hot pink, orange and white mesh), live minnows, 1/64 or 1/32 oz marabou jigs tipped with maggots, soft plastic minnows/nymphs/tubes on a small jig, and salmon egg mimicking beads were all working well when the rivers were last offering good conditions Fly fishers can dead drift egg patterns, beadhead nymph and streamer patterns under strike indicators. There are still a mix of pre-spawn, spawning and post spawn fish present in the streams, and they are well distributed throughout the watersheds. While sampling by the Rocky River Marina two weeks ago we witnessed a large number of fresh steelhead lurking around so the opportunities should continue to be good when river levels drop.
 
Lake-run smallmouth bass and white suckers are also migrating up the Rocky, Chagrin and Cuyahoga rivers on their spawning runs. Smallmouth bass will strike artificial lures similar to steelhead- such as medium size crankbaits, spinners, tube jigs (dark brown and olive are good) as well as marabou jigs under floats and streamer flies that imitate gobies, minnows and crayfish. Spring offers a great opportunity to score the "silver and bronze", which is catching a steelhead and lake-run smallmouth bass in the same day, often from the same pool on the same offering! Lake-run "smallies" are typically available in the streams until early June. For anglers interested in targeting suckers, which some folks utilize into fish patty recipes, a worm on a single hook fished on the river bottom works well, as can smaller nymph patterns on the fly rod.
 
Early last week we stocked a third round of 900 pounds of rainbow trout, with all of those fish going into the East Branch Rocky River. The fish were stocked at five locations between Rt 82 (Royalton Road) and Wallace Lake. Unfortunately, the popular covered bridge spot will not be stocked this spring due to an ongoing major bridge project.  We have one more stocking scheduled and it is scheduled next week.  Additionally, trout stocked throughout the winter remain at Wallace, Ledge and Shadow lakes. The Ohio Division of Wildlife stocked rainbow trout (500 fish) at Shadow Lake on Friday March 22^nd, as well.
 
9^th Annual Barbie Rod Steelhead Derby Fundraiser Recap. Thank you to the 150 hardy souls who ignored the wet weather forecast and attended another fun Barbie Rod Steelhead Derby fundraiser this past Saturday.  We had steelhead caught by anglers who persevered. Sean Correia took first place with a 27.5 inch steelhead.  In second was fishing report regular contributor Ken Stein with a 26.5 inch chrome (he caught another one as well). And our was the 3rd place finisher with a 25.75 inch steelhead was Bunvicheth Leng. The "coveted" biggest sucker award went to J. Phillips with a 19.75 inch white sucker catch. Everyone enjoyed the cookout and went home with a full belly and a 37 folks won some great raffle. And we netted a new event record $13,547 for our Metroparks Fishing Fund in the process (we've raised $62.5K for public fishing over 8 of these events!). A huge thank you to all our volunteers who helped pull this off, our awesome sponsors, and Ohio Central Basin Steelheaders for hosting the raffle portion (which netted half the proceeds). Here’s until next year!  
 
Photo Release Waivers for Fishing Blog Photos (fast and easy to complete online). Photo release waivers for photos sent in for the fishing report can easily be completed online through Smart Waiver (takes only about 30 seconds to complete) at the following link: <Smart Waiver link>. You only need to do this one time and any future additional photos submitted are already covered.
 
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

 

Shaun shows off a trophy tiger trout he caught and released at Wallace Lake on Saturday (photo courtesy of Shaun Cassidy).




Ben was surprised (as would be anyone) to catch this hump backed brown trout by the Rocky River Marina last week.  Ben is a tournament bass angler (and also frequent volunteer at our fishing events)-  check him out on Facebook at Benjamin Mott Fishing (photo courtesy of Ben Mott).




Retired State Wildlife Officer Dave Shinko also caught a Rocky River brown trout this week.  Most of the brown trout (which are always a rare catch) are caught in the river in late fall/early winter being fall spawners, and these may just be late residual fish from that or they could opportunistically be in the lower river feeding on emerald shiners and gizzard shad (photo courtesy of Dave Shinko).
















Rain and cold weather did not deter 150 folks from competing in the Barbie Rod Steelhead Derby on Saturday.  And steelhead were caught!  The top 3 were:  3^rd Place Bunvicheth Leng 25.75”, 2^nd Ken Stein 26.5”, and 1^st Sean Correia 27.5”.  Biggest Sucker honors went to J. Phillips with a 19.75” white sucker.  A bunch more folks showed up for the giant raffle (hosted by Ohio Central Basin Steelheaders) and cookout and in the end we broke the event fundraising record at $13,547 raised for the Cleveland Metroparks Fishing fund.  Thanks again to all who joined us for a very fun day! (photos courtesy of Laura Mantle, Tim Irvin, Joe Miller, Sierra Wick, Rocco Serio and Colton West).





Congratulations to Ken Gawlik on winning the Majestic centerpin reel in the raffle Saturday. He broke a lot of hearts when his ticket got pulled! He came by to pick up his upgrade from a spinning reel on Monday.






A huge thank you to Jason Lawson from Jason’s Automotive for many years of support of the Barbie Rod Steelhead Derby fundraiser. At this point, he’s even looping in new sponsors! We appreciate Jason and his family who are great people. The least we could do was acknowledge his support with a plaque. Please consider supporting local businesses that give back to the community like Jason’s Automotive.




Do you keep steelhead to eat? If so, researchers need your assistance with harvested jacks/skippers (smaller legal size steelhead) to collect data that will help the state refine the hatchery production process. (this is from Dr. Jeff Minor at BGSU who has done some very enlightening research on Lake Erie fish in the past. He can be reached at [email protected]): If a fisherman catches a Steelhead Trout 13-20 inches in length from the six Ohio tributaries to Lake Erie stocked with trout (Vermilion, Rocky, Chagrin, Ashtabula, Grand, and Conneaut rivers) or in Ohio waters of Lake Erie, we would very much appreciate obtaining data about these trout. Specifically, we need to know the location the fish was caught, the length of the fish, and its head (to get the ear bones).Thus, we are not asking fisherman to give us the part of the fish they can consume (enjoy the fillets!). If they place the head or whole body and data in a baggie in the freezer and then contact me ([email protected]), I will contact them and make plans to come pick up the fish. We need a good number of these fish to scientifically test our hypothesis, so I wish fisherman tight lines on the river (or in Lake Erie).
 
Regarding the full research plan for those who want to read more: Our goal is to help the ODOW optimize its hatchery production so that fisherman can get the best experiences when they fish for adult Steelhead Trout in the Lake and returning to our rivers. The Ohio DOW does a great job obtaining the best strains of Steelhead Trout, but they do not know which strains have the best chances of returning as adults. Additionally, all trout raised in hatcheries (everywhere) appear to go through periods of stress in hatcheries that affect their ability to hear and balance. This impediment occurs through the hearing system in fish, that is, their otoliths (ear bones) are affected. All trout start life with ear bones made of high-density material (aragonite) that makes for great hearing acuity; however in hatcheries, when stressed, these ear bones will grow as a low density form (vaterite) and this reduces the ability of the fish to hear. At the ODOW state hatchery in Castalia where Steelhead Trout are raised, about 50% of the fish have these poor-hearing ear bones, and some strains have even a greater percentage with the low density otoliths. Our current research focus is on determining 1) the stresses causing the shift to the poor-hearing ear bones, 2) the effect this shift has on vulnerability to predators (lab study), and 3) whether or not the low density ear bones affect return rates of these fish to the spring Steelhead Trout fishery (field study).

BGSU has data on the ear bone status of the Steelhead Trout smolts stocked in Ohio tributaries in spring 2023. Our field study involves comparing the ear bones of those smolts with the ear bones of jacks returning to our rivers this spring. Thus, we are asking you to help us get the word to fisherman that we could really use their help collecting data from these jacks (13-20 inches).