David McDermott has a camp that steelheaders would envy, on Lake Erie at the mouth of Crooked Creek.
When the silver bullets aren't running he wades offshore, casting crankbaits for whatever bites.
"The last couple of years about this time, after the walleye spawn, I was catching walleye in 10 to 15 feet of water," said McDermott. "It was like BOOM, BOOM, BOOM _ the water was that thick with them. It's not a very far cast and it was better to fish in the early morning or at night."
Steelheaders hoping to take a bite out of smolt predation might want a heads-up on where and when the walleye are grazing on the juvenile trout. On Lake Erie and its tributaries, walleye season reopened May 1. Minimum size 15 inches; daily limit six.
McDermott said he was pleasantly surprised to discover the May massing of walleye. Assuming it had something to do with the passage of steelhead smolts into Lake Erie, he asked a knowledgeable neighbor what was going on.
"It's not just walleye. There are occasional brown trout and smallmouths this time of year, all waiting for smolts coming out," said John DiTommaso, a captain for Presque Isle Tour Boats. "SONS of Lake Erie stocked smolts two weeks ago."
In seasons when Pennsylvania steelhead fishing is considered poor, anglers often blame the low hookup rate on walleye consumption of the smolt.
In fact, predation of steelhead smolts "is variable from year to year," said Chuck Murray, Lake Erie fisheries manager for the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission. "We know that walleye are a predator of steelhead smolt, but it's very difficult to tell to what extent."
Despite persistent claims of some steelhead reproduction in Pennsylvania streams, it's an artificial fishery. Rainbow trout eggs are hatched in hatcheries where the fish are grown. The number of 6- to 7-inch smolts stocked by Fish and Boat remains constant.
"We stock a million of them a year," Murray said. "What changes is the relative abundance of walleye and conditions including weather that give the walleye access to the emigrating smolts."
It's all about timing.
Walleye are native to the Great Lakes and Ohio River watersheds and are among the first fish to spawn _ sometimes even before ice-out. At Lake Erie's latitude the females randomly drop their eggs at night when the water hits about 44 to 47 degrees. Afterward the exhausted females lead their school to the nearest all-you-can-eat buffet.
At the hatcheries, steelhead are loaded into tanker trucks and driven to the Erie tributaries. Elk Creek gets about 240,000 smolts, 24 percent of all that are stocked in Pennsylvania. Other creeks get fewer. Crooked Creek's quota is about 85,000.
Nearly all of the smolt are planted within a two- or three-week period in late February and early March.
"You want them to stay (in their home waters) for a couple of weeks to imprint, but you don't want them to stay too long," Murray said.
Emigration is a gauntlet and many smolts don't survive. Even before they meet ravenous schools of walleye and other fish at the creek mouth, the adolescent trout are preyed upon in the streams where they're forced to dodge raccoons, mink, osprey, herons, gulls, blue jays _ just about anything capable of killing them, including trout anglers who start fishing in mid-April and may harvest smolts that reach the 9-inch minimum for all trout species. Walleye mass at all smolt-stocked tributaries when the young fish reach the lake.
"We did some research on (emigration)," Murray said. "It seems like about three weeks to a month when the bulk of the fish have moved. Most of the emigration has probably already occurred."
During this year's mild winter, ice never completely covered Presque Isle Bay. Warmer water temperatures are likely to have impacted the walleye spawn. Rain and high water delayed some smolt stocking schedules, but not by much. And during the last couple of weeks, rain and cold winds whipped up waves that have left a mud line stretching out a half mile from Lake Erie shores.
Credit for the annual May massing of walleye outside McDermott's camp goes to the Cooperative Nursery Program. Fish and Boat gives small smolt to independent nonprofit groups such as SONS, which finish growing the fish to stocking size and often help to stock them.
"It's that late stocking by SONS of Lake Erie," DiTommaso said. "(The smolt) are just getting to the mouth now, and the walleye and everything else are here for them."
Private property reduces angling opportunities at the mouth of Crooked Creek, but when the mud line falls boaters can find their own legal access. DiTommaso recommends the classic pop-and-pause with floating-sinking crankbaits and stickbaits painted to look like rainbow trout. Murray concurs.
"It's anecdotal, but some guys are nighttime shore fishing with a 4-inch Rapala in rainbow trout pattern," he said.
DiTommaso looks for rocky bottoms under 2 to 4 feet of water at dusk.
"Walleye have eyes on the top of their head, so they're looking up," he said. "On a full moon night, it's very good to fish with a stickbait just under the surface."
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