Spring Run Steelhead

“I remember a lesson learned years ago that came with a big slice of humble pie. Back then we were the young guns on Wiscon sin’s Brule River, full of unearned swagger and the misplaced confidence of youth.”

- David Zeug

Knowing the holding water in a given stream and the right time to fish it can considerably improve your chances of catching steelhead during the spring spawning run. A few simple angling techniques also help. It took me a half-century to learn some of these things. Perhaps reading this will flatten out your learning curve a bit.

I remember a lesson learned years ago that came with a big slice of humble pie. Back then we were the young guns on Wisconsin’s Brule River, full of unearned swagger and the misplaced confidence of youth. We’d fished the famous waters since we were old enough to keep up with our elders, and we’d tasted success, enough to think we had the steelhead game figured out.

On that cold, grey April afternoon my partner and I were working our way downstream to the head of a long deep run we wanted to work at the end of the day. But when we got there, another fisherman was already in “our” spot.

When we saw the bobber drifting in front of him we exchanged eye rolls and a smirk. Bobbers were for bluegills, or maybe crappies, but definitely not for steelhead in the Brule River.

Then the man’s rod dipped and a fresh 30-inch chromer cart wheeled into the air directly in front of him.

As we watched him deftly land that impressive fish, my buddy quietly murmured, “Even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while.”

When the man hooked another minutes later, I began to realize that maybe, just maybe, my partner was dead wrong.