SAO Pages

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Mixed Bag Mania

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to hit a river in northwest Ohio that I hadn't fished in a number of years.  Noted for its amazing spring run of walleye and white bass out of Lake Erie, the Maumee River is a fisherman's Meca in the months of March-May.

As May comes to a close, though the fisherman are beginning to thin, the fishing opportunities continue in their intensity.  No, it's not the world renowned Lake Erie walleye or the spunky white bass, but it is often times what some call "garbage fish" that are a great opportunity on the fly.  On a typical late May or early June day, you can catch gar, drum, carp, buffalo,
 quillback carpsuckers, and the normal gamefish....smallmouth bass, an occasional left over walleye, and white bass.  The river does get the occasional stray salmon and also a decent number of northern pike during other times of year as well.

As for me, I only had a couple of hours to be on the water on this particular day, and it was not a very nice day.  It was windy, with some intermittent showers and really, not a comfortable day.  Temps were in the lower 50's with winds gusting down the river up to 30mph.  Yeah, it put my otherwise rooky level spey skills to the test.  I guess the good thing was that no large flies were planted in the back of my skull from picking the wrong cast at the wrong time :)

At any rate, I want to encourage you fly fishers out there looking for additional opportunities or out of the box stuff to give these forage fish a shot!  They are a lot of fun on a fly rod!


Give us a call this summer if you are interested in giving some of these warmwater species a try.

Tight Lines, 

Patrick "Flybum" Robinson
Head Guide


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