# Anybody ready?



## Jfish (Sep 22, 2010)

I wouldn't mind fishing the Clinton some time. Can anyone send me a message as to where an access point is to wade for Chrome?

I fish OH rivers all the time so I'd be willing to share the same info.

As far as the debate goes as to fishing up North or fishing South. I'd rather catch wild fish than stockers but really, what's more practical? Driving 4 to 8 hours and losing that much fishing time or sticking with 1 or 2 hours and not losing that much fishing time?

I do both but sometimes I just don't want to drive or spend that much $. Especially when OH rivers have good flows.


----------



## ClintonRiverKing (Apr 19, 2013)

try heritage park off of van ****. if you wanna walk more and get away from traffic noise and all that try parking at the end of utica road just north of m-59 and walk the train tracks up a little to the river theres a lot of damn near unfished water back there. lots of wildlife too both my girlfriend and I have both been attacked by deer back there. 


_Posted from Michigan-sportsman.com App for Android_


----------



## TroutSniffa (Jul 14, 2012)

royal oak area coolidge and 696... going to lookup some of the recommended starting points.. i know the river goes a decent way into the state and had no idea where those fish go in it... or that it was walkable/wadeable... an hr drive is not terrible if i can wade the river with a shot at catching stealies ... cant drive the 3.5 to the pm as often as i would like... 

if anyone with any know how / exp on that river wants to take a walk and give it a go in the up comming weeks let me know.. im def down to give it a shot for the hrish drive... **** iv spent afternoons on johnsons drian ..


----------



## TroutSniffa (Jul 14, 2012)

ps... are these fish coming from lake heron through LSC? if so where do they stop is there a damn on the clinton that ends the run?


----------



## Swampbuckster (Nov 28, 2010)

I believe they come from both Huron and Erie. BTW I've seen bald eagles on the Huron. One of my largest steelhead I've hooked into came from the Huron as well. I usually drive west to the Kzoo river, but have made the trip down to the Huron, only an hour from me, half a dozen times last year and have always had fun. Heck, even caught a few steelhead. It's not what others say you should do or where to fish, it's what you get out of it.


----------



## Pikewhisperer (Sep 9, 2011)

Rodger that

Sent from The Halls of Krom


----------



## FishMichv2 (Oct 18, 2004)

TroutSniffa said:


> royal oak area coolidge and 696... going to lookup some of the recommended starting points.. i know the river goes a decent way into the state and had no idea where those fish go in it... or that it was walkable/wadeable... an hr drive is not terrible if i can wade the river with a shot at catching stealies ... cant drive the 3.5 to the pm as often as i would like...
> 
> if anyone with any know how / exp on that river wants to take a walk and give it a go in the up comming weeks let me know.. im def down to give it a shot for the hrish drive... **** iv spent afternoons on johnsons drian ..


from where you live you should be able to find some good fishing in less than an hour drive. the upper reaches of the clinton are very wadeable. there are some holes you need to be careful of but that goes for anywhere. there is a dam in rochester but it doesnt stop the fish. that being said, most people fish the river below the dam.


----------



## Jfish (Sep 22, 2010)

Swampbuckster said:


> I believe they come from both Huron and Erie.


You're saying that they travel downstream out of Lake Huron?


Posted using Outdoor Hub Campfire


----------



## Swampbuckster (Nov 28, 2010)

I have no facts but if fish swim from the eastern basin of erie to ohio tribs and the huron, I don't see why they wouldn't. I would imagine a fish or two reside in the st. Clair river and shipping channel through st.clair. They could end up anywhere from juvenile to adults but always, or most the time returning when mature to spawn to the rivers they were released into.


----------



## timj (Apr 28, 2003)

Yep you're right about the occassional steelhead hanging out in the shipping channel. Back in July, I caught 2 steelhead from there near the saint clair light house in Lake saint clair. Of course we had a cooler summer this year.


----------



## Jfish (Sep 22, 2010)

Are you guys talking about the Huron river or lake Huron? They would have to travel down stream for a long ways to get into Lake St. Clair from Lake Huron. Those fish don't migrate downstream.


Posted using Outdoor Hub Campfire


----------



## TroutSniffa (Jul 14, 2012)

thanks for the info guys, any additional is also appreciated... 

anyone know for sure if these fish are coming from huron, erie, or both?

also assuming they are all coming in to the river through lsc.. Would it be safe to say that come Oct/ Nov anywhere on the river between lsc and the damn is as good as the next or has anyone noticed the concentration of fish to be greater toward the dam or the mouth or the middle?? 

preferred methods to target these fish??

thundersticks and cranks? spoons / spinners? eggs/worm on drift? Flys?? 
best to walk the smaller parts or fish the larger from boats? Troll or cash? depth for dipsys n riggers or casting/top troll gear is cool for the depth?

as i said i have never paid any attention to this river that is not all that far from my house and is apparently worth getting to know.. as its not exactly in the back yard i still will not be able to fish it every day or likely even as much as i would like to... so for meee getting as muchhh info ahead of time form others who have already put time in on this water and then trying to draw my own conclusions from their experiences and what info is available to me else where will give me more time on fish to determine whats working and relay that to others rather then spending multiple trips just trying to find access learn the river find fish and start figuring out what they want...
i have heard it said that with proper prep you catch 80% of your fish before you leave the house... for me im sure that number is much much lower but im trying to bring it up!!
any help and info is appreciated any apprehension is understood and any day you wanna fish is a good day in my book... (of course ill have to check my book, but my schedule is pretty flexible..)

thanks again and good luck


----------



## TroutSniffa (Jul 14, 2012)

i was wondering where these stealies that they are catching in the huron river are coming from... they dont live in lsc... sooo i can only assume they are coming out of huron or erie...??


----------



## ClintonRiverKing (Apr 19, 2013)

most if not all the steel in the huron and clinton come from lake erie 


_Posted from Michigan-sportsman.com App for Android_


----------



## TroutSniffa (Jul 14, 2012)

ty makes more sense.. have a place out in lexington and the fish havent even moved into the marinas yet there was having a hard time understanding how they could be in the clinton from there... but again i had no idea...


----------



## TroutSniffa (Jul 14, 2012)

so they are going from Erie through the detroit river through lsc to the clinton?? seems like a hell of a trip and that the huron river would be a lottt closer to where they started?? also wouldnt the det riv have a nice run? do people fish it down river, trenton wynedott n so on? all i ever hear people fishing down there is eyes?


----------



## TroutSniffa (Jul 14, 2012)

For the huron river run do they make it all the way up to the dam at belleville lake? do they stack up there? used to keep the boat on belleville yearsss ago and fished that dam from the lake side never the river side...

thanks again..


----------



## Jfish (Sep 22, 2010)

TroutSniffa said:


> so they are going from Erie through the detroit river through lsc to the clinton?? seems like a hell of a trip and that the huron river would be a lottt closer to where they started?? also wouldnt the det riv have a nice run? do people fish it down river, trenton wynedott n so on? all i ever hear people fishing down there is eyes?


Yes they are coming from Erie all the way up. They don't migrate downstream from Lake Huron. I bet some make it up to Lake Huron from Erie though...just not the other way around.

Rainbows (steelhead) will be in every creek and river feeding into any of the lakes. They don't always home in on the rivers that they were stocked into. Heck they're only there for a few weeks usually if that before temps get too warm. There are a few and I mean few spring creeks that feed into Erie where there may be natural reproduction. Some in Canada and elsewhere. 


Posted using Outdoor Hub Campfire


----------



## Swampbuckster (Nov 28, 2010)

TroutSniffa said:


> so they are going from Erie through the detroit river through lsc to the clinton?? seems like a hell of a trip and that the huron river would be a lottt closer to where they started?? also wouldnt the det riv have a nice run? do people fish it down river, trenton wynedott n so on? all i ever hear people fishing down there is eyes?


Steelhead and Salmon return to there home rivers where they were raised. Since the Huron and Clinton are not sustainable for natural reproduction, they technically weren't raised there and they release them past the smolting stage in the spring when the water temps are cool enough for survival on their journey out to the lake. , Once they mature in the big lake old enough to spawn, I believe for steelhead it's 3 years maybe? They return to the rivers they were released into. Most find more suitable rivers when they return to spawn while getting mixed in with other steelhead as well, but there is such a thing as an actual imprint of a river. An actual chemical scent imprint that hones steelhead back to their home rivers. They actually had at one time a scent dripper that leaked into the Huron river to aid in bringing more steelhead back! I know a lot of this sounds crazy but it's all stuff I researched trying to answer these same questions. Tagged fish that have been checked in the Flat Rock dam fish ladder have been found coming from Indiana originally! Talk about a long journey! So I would say yes the majority of the fish in the Clinton come from Lake Erie but they could honestly come from almost anywhere. I always pondered maybe the reason the Huron gets such poor returns is the fact that the Huron empties into basically the mouth of the Detroit River so most fish cruise on past the Huron river mouth up to LSC. Once they get there they are like "Hmmmm, where do we go now? Follow Jim! He's heading toward the Clinton!" Ok, so maybe not that extreme, but you get the point.


----------



## Swampbuckster (Nov 28, 2010)

TroutSniffa said:


> For the huron river run do they make it all the way up to the dam at belleville lake? do they stack up there? used to keep the boat on belleville yearsss ago and fished that dam from the lake side never the river side...
> 
> thanks again..


Yes, they can make it all the way to the dam in Belleville. I believe when they first installed the fish ladder at the FR dam they were expecting awesome spawning grounds up river and that the Huron would start to see increased return percentages. As steelhead went up the ladder, they would have a net in placer to count what was going through day by day during the runs. Steelhead DID pass through and still do but I don't think it was the numbers they were expecting. I don't believe they keep track any longer what passes through the ladder anymore. Last spring I had an itch to launch my boat at one of the metroparks between Belleville and FR (small v bottom I could walk the trailer to the waters edge, there is no actual boatlaunch between the dams) but always fished between the mouth and FR instead. I've heard of people catching steelhead in the upper portion but not a whole lot of talk about it. There is 17 miles between FR and Belleville dams so you can only imagine how spread out the fish are. One would think though if you put your time in year after year, you would eventuallty know which holes would produce consistently and which ones wouldn't. I just don't have THAT much time on my hands!


----------

