Trail Creek Steelhead : Michigan City : 7/27/2009

The day started at 2:30 a.m. the alarm clock went off, I threw on my swim suit and cloths, and hopped in the car, met a friend or three and got on the highway by 3:00 a.m. out of Chicago and on down to Michigan City to fish for Skamania Steelhead on Trail Creek.

At first light this is what Trail Creek looked like, a golden green wonderland, with silver bullet steelhead waiting to be hooked. I was with a friend of mine, Dan, fishing here on this stretch, and 2 more of my friends, Mike and Keith could be found elsewhere on Trail Creek today.

It wasn't too long before I hooked into my first Skamania, it was a beauty of a Steelhead. It took a little 2 foot hop in some rapids and that was the last I saw of it.

I later switched to a personal favorite lure that has produced for me when all else fails, and on the 2nd or 3rd cast, I hooked a 26" female Steelhead, an eventful 5 minutes fight ensued.

At the end the steelhead was in the net, but I had stripped to that swimsuit, and swam across the river with my rod above my head to free the Steelhead from the tree it had kindly wrapped my line around several times. This one doubled the prior Steelhead jump of 2 feet, it's fist hop was an easy 4 foot launch. It actually woke Dan up with that jump, he was napping next to the creek for a bit. Getting up at 2:30 isn't easy.

Within 5 minutes, while I was dripping in my swimsuit and explaining how I got to be that we, Dan's rod literally doubled over and I shouted fish on. He had a bull of a Steelhead, I believe it was a male. His didn't jump but it pulled up and down stream a couple of times before I was able to wrestle it to a stop so we could remove the hooks.

Dan hooked up one more time on what looked to be an orange bodied, gold bladed rooster tail with brown hackle. Unfortunatly that Skamania took a jump and kindly spit the spinner back at Dan.

Here Dan and I are with our lovely Skamanias.

All in all a lovely day in Michigan city, angling for these beautiful Skamania Steelhead, one of the most areal fighters of the Great Lakes fish. Happy to have made it out there. Mike's photographs from his recent Steelhead outings can be found at his frequently updated (and very informative) blog, here.

Thanks for reading, I'd love to spend all these hot summer mornings pitching things between fallen logs, over rocks, and down rapids with hopes that the surface of the water will suddenly erupt as a Steelhead bursts to such great heights. Amazing. See ya out there!