Sanders Hamilton, 14, shows off the medal he won for first place in the Northwest Indiana Steelheaders December fishing tournament recently with his 9-pound, 11-ounce catch.
Lew Freedman | The Tribune
Sanders Hamilton holds his winning, 9-pound, 11-ounce steelhead.
Lew Freedman | The Tribune
Mike Ryan, vice president of the Northwest Indiana Steelheaders club, weighs in a fish in the recent State Stream & Surf Tournament in Michigan City.
Lew Freedman | The Tribune
Cameron Godinez, took second place in the steelhead contest with his 9-pound, 6-ounce fish, but also earned special mention with the biggest brown trout.
Lew Freedman | The Tribune
Steelhead are popular targets of anglers in northern Indiana and around Lake Michigan. They are hard fighters on the line and have glittering silver bodies.
Lew Freedman | The Tribune
Ron Ryba caught this 7-pound, 12-ounce steelhead and placed third in the tournament.
Lew Freedman | The Tribune
Cameron Godinez, the only tournament entrant who also caught and weighed a brown trout at 1 pound, 6 ounces, was rewarded with a certificate.
Lew Freedman | The Tribune
Father James Kutch (7 pounds, 5 ounces) and son Nicholas, 12, who caught a 5-pound, 7-ounce fish, both weighed in during the tournament.
Lew Freedman | The Tribune
Wayne Clemons, a Lake Michigan shore regular who was bundled up in a full snowsuit, began fishing at 5:30 a.m. but did not catch a steelhead for entry.
Lew Freedman | The Tribune
Ron Zurek got an early start fishing, but had to quit early and did not come up with a steelhead for the contest.
Lew Freedman | The Tribune
A posted sign differentiating between the types of trout and salmon at a public access site for the Trail Creek tributary.
Lew Freedman | The Tribune
The Northwest Indiana Steelheaders aid with habitat preservation and undertake projects to help the steelhead thrive such as this marked spot on the outskirts of Michigan City.
Lew Freedman | The Tribune
Greg Miller of nearby West Westville, has been fishing for steelhead for decades in Michigan City.
Lew Freedman | The Tribune
Greg Miller of nearby West Westville, has been fishing for steelhead for decades in Michigan City.
Lew Freedman | The TribuneMICHIGAN CITY — The gleaming, silver-bodied fish was a beauty, more than 9 pounds in weight and maybe two feet long, dangling by its gills from Cameron Godinez’s finger grip outside Tony’s Bait Shop.
To those who battle steelhead trout, who engage in the contest of wits and nerve with the fish oh-so-rare in most parts of the country, every catch is a prize born of a muscle-straining fight.
Sometimes on Lake Michigan, and its tributaries such as Trail Creek, the contest lasts long enough to bulge arm muscles. Other times, the fish springs from the dark waters, leaping above the surface in breathtaking and magnificent manner, rendering the human on the other end of the line open- jawed.
MICHIGAN CITY — The gleaming, silver-bodied fish was a beauty, more than 9 pounds in weight and maybe two feet long, dangling by its gills from Cameron Godinez’s finger grip outside Tony’s Bait Shop.
To those who battle steelhead trout, who engage in the contest of wits and nerve with the fish oh-so-rare in most parts of the country, every catch is a prize born of a muscle-straining fight.
Sometimes on Lake Michigan, and its tributaries such as Trail Creek, the contest lasts long enough to bulge arm muscles. Other times, the fish springs from the dark waters, leaping above the surface in breathtaking and magnificent manner, rendering the human on the other end of the line open- jawed.
Such a self-preservation maneuver is scenic in nature, but it might also, ironically as the phrase sounds, mean the jig is up, and the fish’s escape is assured.
“People travel all over the world to catch fish like this and we have them right here,” said Godinez, 23, a local resident.
Godinez’s steelhead weighed 9 pounds, 6 ounces, which won him a second-place medal in the one-day Northwest Indiana Steelheaders State Stream and Surf Tournament in early December.
He also was awarded a certificate for bringing in the largest brown trout of 1-pound, 6 ounces There were a dozen contenders for steelhead, but Godinez was the only one to catch the other kind of fish.
On a day when the wind blew, but the temperature was somewhat mild in the 40s, fishermen who prepare for any weather with the thickest clothing they own, were if anything too comfortable.
“Steelheaders are diehard fishermen,” said Mike Ryan, vice-president of the Steelheaders club. “Weather is never a factor.”
Steelhead are not a secret, but unlike bass, which are catchable all over the United States, they seem like a special bounty for small groups of anglers in the Pacific Northwest and a few places, such as northern Indiana, in the Midwest.
When a steelheader talks of what makes the fish so special, a gleam comes to the eye and a tone of admiration to the voice.
“It’s the fastest fish in clear water,” Ryan said. “They’ll jump eight to 10 feet in the air. It’s the fight. It’s crazy fishing.”
Indiana’s special fish
A sign posted at the Indiana Department of Natural Resources Trail Creek Forks public access site on the outskirts of Michigan City breaks down descriptions of different types of trout and salmon so anglers can identify them.
Included is this: “Steelhead, white teeth, mouth and gums black spots on back, sides, caudal and dorsal fins; caudal fin margin is square.” Not mentioned is that steelhead have summer and winter runs and can grow to more than 40 pounds, though most are between 8 and 11 pounds in size. They have a lifespan of about 11 years.
Mostly, steelhead are located in Alaska, and on the West Coast of the United States and Canada, in places like the Columbia River, the Snake River, in British Columbia, and California. Steelhead are a threatened species in many of those places.
Through stocking efforts dating back about 50 years, northern Indiana has pockets of steelhead. Some other midwestern and northeastern states do too. These include the Niagara River in New York and some locales in Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio. Michigan was the pioneer in stocking, going back to 1876 in the Au Sable River, a tributary of Lake Huron.
“It’s like the glamor fish of the Great Lakes,” Ryan said.
You won’t find Ben Dickinson, the DNR Lake Michigan chief fisheries biologist, arguing that. He, too, is an avid steelhead fisherman.
“They’re one of the hardest fighters of fish out there,” he said. “It’s a blast to catch them. I’ve had fish jump out of the water six feet in the air and land on a sandbar.”
Indiana steelhead sometimes reach 15 pounds. The state record, Dickinson said, is 26.6 pounds, caught in 1999. For a time many weighing 20-plus pounds were caught.
“The fish were just super giant,” Dickinson said.
Indiana first introduced steelhead to the colder waters of Lake Michigan tributaries, where they could spawn, in the early 1970s. Some 100,000 each were stocked in the Little Calumet River and in Trail Creek.
The total stocked in 2021 will be about 390,000, Dickinson said, with 270,000 spring yearlings in April and 120,000 fingerlings in the fall. The steelhead stocked in the early part of the year are Skamania, originally from Washington state’s Skamania River and make for a viable fishery during the summer. There is another run late in the year.
Initially, Skamania eggs came from Washington. Now the main steelhead source for stocking is the Bodine State Fish Hatchery in Mishawaka. The hatchery gathers adult Skamania.
“Steelhead are definitely Indiana’s flagship trout fishery,” Dickinson said, “especially Skamania.”
Steelhead like it cold
It was 6:30 a.m. and dawn was breaking on Trail Creek in the 37-degree grayness. Accompanied by the quacking of a flock of ducks, the only other flesh and blood stirring in that not-yet-awake downtown neighborhood, Greg Miller was casting.
Miller, 56, has fished steelhead since he was 12. As difficult as they may be to land, he said eight-pound test line is sufficient.
“A lot of guys who come down here think they need 16-pound test,” said Miller, a security guard from Westville. “A lot of people think they need heavy equipment. Really, sometimes when they hit it’s very subtle and the bobber will just dip under. You would think they would break loose.”
A partisan of using shrimp as bait (although many employ waxworms), Miller brought shrimp that appeared big enough to be offered in Red Lobster’s endless shrimp orders. He was a pessimist on this morning about the bite, but the menu should have been appetizing.
Miller previously committed a tactical mistake here a mile or so from the mouth of Lake Michigan. His car was parked just out of sight and rather than reel in before running back to the vehicle to grab something, he lay his rod down on the concrete by the water. A moment later he heard the scraping sound of his rod being dragged across the pavement. He raced back just in time to see it floating away after a steelhead mouthed the bait.
A little later, a friend cast and hooked the departed rod, reeled in and brought it to shore — with the fish still on the hook.
Living right. Though perhaps not this day. After 40 minutes and not even a nibble, Miller declared the spot unproductive and moved to another location. At the new place, Miller said, “This is one of the hottest spots on Trail Creek. I couldn’t tell you how many steelhead I’ve caught right here. I couldn’t even put a number on it.”
About 15 minutes later, raindrops began falling. Coats were brought out.
“This should be snow,” Miller said.
That was a way of saying the fish were ignoring the bait because it wasn’t cold enough.
“I’ve also struck out here many times,” Miller said. “I think we’re skunked.”
After two-and-a-half hours of fishing, he surrendered. Miller reeled in and embarked on a Christmas shopping expedition with his wife.
He was not the only one spurned by steelhead that weekend. In another downtown spot overlooking the water, anglers park right next to the water. Wayne Clemons, 77, sat in a folding chair, decked out in a full-scale light brown snowmobile suit, hood up.
If he caught a steelhead Clemons would enter it in the tournament, but he would be pleased with any bite.
“I fish here year-round,” Clemons said. “I catch a lot of perch, walleye and crappie. I caught a steelhead about three days ago. I’ve seen a couple of big ones porpoising.”
Translated, that meant jumping out of the water. Miller not long ago had a steelhead leap up and land on his bobber. That was backwards. Fish are supposed to come up for under for the bait.
Ron Zurek, 58, fishing a short distance away, also was bundled against the wind in a snowsuit. Some anglers take charter boats, especially in the summer, but he said he prefers throwing from shore.
“I like casting,” he said.
Zurek has a fond memory of a recently caught 15-pound steelhead.
“He just hammered it,” he said of that fish mouthing the bait. “Oh yeah, they give you a good fight.”
Club has a long history
Preparations for greeting the lucky fishermen were underway at Tony’s Bait Shop, a Michigan City institution and on tournament day the site of the weigh-in.
While the club called the 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. session “tailgating” since such eats as hot dogs and chili were refreshments, a distrust of the weather meant the weigh-in was indoors.
At times in the past, Ryan said, tournament competitors had to weigh five steelhead. This was a one-fish tourney. Nothing fancy. No entry cost. No prize money. Only medals for top finishers. Given the slow bite, it was difficult to surmise how many anglers would catch one they felt worthy.
The Northwest Indiana Steelheaders have been around since 1982 and some founders and long-time members were on the premises supervising.
Rich Hedgepeth, 70, was club president in the beginning and is club president now. Around 1975, he went to the hotbed of Berrien Springs, Mich., with the question, “What’s a steelhead?” He quickly developed a passion for the fish.
“I had come from salt water,” he said, familiar even with stingrays and sharks.
Now he ran cite, with no deep memory probing, the date of July 5, 1981.
“My first 20-pounder,” he said. “We are blessed with the Skamania.”
Skamania mania is pervasive in the area.
Leon Kust, 76, of Laporte is another long-term acolyte of steelhead fishing. Fishing narrower sections of Trail Creek tunnel the fish and give them less room to roam.
“They can’t really run away,” Kust said. “You open up your bail and they’ll come back to you and the fight starts all over again. They’re very picturesque when they jump.”
Jumping is a bonus. Fishermen just hope the steelhead bite.
Surprise winner
Ron Ryba, 57, showing off his fan allegiance in a brightly colored Notre Dame football sweatshirt, was Ryan’s first customer at the weights-and-measurement table after 11 a.m.
His steelhead catch clocked in at 7 pounds, 12 ounces. Prowling Trail Creek, Ryba, who has been fishing since age 7, caught a fish and then “Three casts later, I got this one.” He declared, “I’m in the lead!”
Soon enough, challengers trickled in. They had parked rods and lures, such as the Oslo, Mepps and Voodoo jigs, among the variety different anglers tried. Father James Kutch, who landed a 7-pound, 5-ounce fish, and son Nicholas, who caught a 5-pound, 7-ounce steelhead, would have been in primo position if they could have combined their weights.
There were lulls with no weigh-ins and there was the occasional tale of a steelhead that fought lure and line with vigor.
Brian Berry encountered one of those combatants.
“It just kind of hit out of nowhere,” Berry said. “He fought about 10 minutes. I just let him run. I should have lost him.”
Didn’t though, and the fish weighed in at 5 pounds, 11 ounces.
It got crowded in the bait shop as time began running short on the tournament. Some fishermen figured they had done the best they could on came in and waited. Other anglers kept lines in the water until the last minute hoping to catch an even bigger fish, then they rushed in to make the time cutoff.
Godinez’s fish held down first place. The fish gave up within four minutes of being hooked, he said.
“He was in a log jam,” Godinez said. “It was a six-foot pocket.” The fish was cornered.
Godinez, a laborer in a mill, generally fishes four times a week after work, skipping weekends when the creek is more populated.
“I enjoy my time,” he said. “I’d rather be out there by myself.”
Godinez guessed he caught about 15 steelhead during the week leading up to the tournament. He was well-prepped. But even the best anglers know there is such a thing as lightning striking. With just minutes to spare, there was a new threat.
The 12th and last fished weighed was the heaviest, and it belonged to the least experienced angler in the bunch. Sanders Hamilton, 14, was fishing near family property with two adults and hooked a 9-pound, 12-ounce steelhead. Biggest of the day.
Presented with the championship medal, Hamilton seemed a bit bewildered by the fuss made about him and his fish. He didn’t really have much in his youthful background to compare with this moment.
“I’ve never really been fishing before,” Hamilton said.
Going head-to-head with fishermen who have been catching steelhead for a lifetime, that was the punch line for the whole State Stream and Surf Tournament.