# first time steelie fishing



## kope23 (Nov 14, 2010)

Went fishing on the Ausable this past weekend, people were catching steelie but i didn't catch any Fri,Sat or Sunday. Finally went to Wellmans party & bait store on south state street. I was figuring it might be the line i was using after trying a bunch of different methods. Sure enough Dave and Ross (the owner) hooked me up!!! I told them I wanted to respool my rod with new line. They said my line was fine but I needed to use a different type of line for my leader. They could of said yeah we have to respool your rod and made money on me. They were real honest and nice guys. My nephew caught two nice steelies on Sunday. We brought his pole with his line he was using and Dave said just use some of his extra line from him for a leader. So Monday we went out and sure enough within 20 min i caught an nice 27 inch steelie. What a fight!! 1/2 hour after that one I caught a 18 inch steelie. That gave a pretty good fight also. There were two guy's from Bay City that also helped us out allot. One of the guy's caught nine in one day and five the other day. He would catch them and then release them. He is alergic to fish so he let them go. He just love fishing. Very knowledgeable man I think i learned from him in one day what it would take me a week to read and research. I really want to thank all these guy's Wellmans is a great bait shop and they only charge $2 each to clean and skin your fish. i also bought some smoked fish to bring home, Man it was the best fresh smoked fish i ever had.


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## ontheflly (Mar 9, 2010)

Congradulations on landing your first steelie. Now you will have the bug to get back to the river and try for another and another and...... It really helps sometimes to watch other people (especially if they are hooking fish) and see what type of rig they are using and what color bags, etc. Many times in clear water ya have to use light leader to even stand a chance of hooking em, then ya have to play them real light.


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## Robert Holmes (Oct 13, 2008)

I remember my first one and the last one that I caught and many inbetween. The first one was hooked on the rifle river on a mepps spinner and landed by Fred Bear. I have been hooked on steelhead ever since. Fortunately I live where I can catch them all year long. Except for deer season I fish for them all year long including ice fishing for them. The ice fishing is the most fun


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## ausable_steelhead (Sep 30, 2002)

Nice job, the AS can be tough for newbs. I'm glad the guy released those fish, as I'm sure some were skippers. The guys on the AS rope everything, often times over their limit. I'll be on the river Saturday, and will be turning loose every fish I get.


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## kope23 (Nov 14, 2010)

ontheflly said:


> Congradulations on landing your first steelie. Now you will have the bug to get back to the river and try for another and another and...... It really helps sometimes to watch other people (especially if they are hooking fish) and see what type of rig they are using and what color bags, etc. Many times in clear water ya have to use light leader to even stand a chance of hooking em, then ya have to play them real light.


I know I want to go again in two weeks and take my 15 year old up there. We will see how the finances are by then. I have some steelie spawn left. I froze it I hope it will still be good to fish with. The color we used was pink. The guy that helped us out ton was using pink and green ones. He said he caught a couple on the green but the pink was real hot. Sure enough I caught my two and my nephew caught his two on the pink.


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