# Anyone old enough to remember this?



## twistedcatfish1971 (Jul 21, 2013)

Was just cleaning fish lab and found topo map/westbranch...they all got the Ohio's record fish on maps. We are getting into salmon/trout season soon. Just thought to myself (damn) that must have been some kind of battle with that Chinook down there @ Daniels park (10/23/1972)


Share any stories about a salmon/trout caught somewhere...where you may have thought not possible or rare.

Example:

I caught a rain bow June 17th of this year under the 59 bridge in downtown Kent.

Don


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## westbranchbob (Jan 1, 2011)

About 10 years ago...probably more like 15 I caught a 4 ish pound coho in the grand river around Thanksgiving all the way up by harpersfeild...only one I've ever seen.

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## Bluefinn (Jan 26, 2007)

westbranchbob said:


> About 10 years ago...probably more like 15 I caught a 4 ish pound coho in the grand river around Thanksgiving all the way up by harpersfeild...only one I've ever seen.
> 
> Sent from my SM-G990U using Tapatalk


About 40 years ago there use to be a run of jack coho's up the Rocky. We killed them slow trolling mepps spinners . That was the last coho I've seen. Wish there were more salmon in our rivers now. Steelhead are a blast but not as good on the table.


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## snag (Dec 27, 2005)

Probably around the 80s I got a chinook salmon in a small trib off the grand, around ten pounds in the fall.


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## Steel Cranium (Aug 22, 2005)

Wouldn’t want to go back to the pre-steelie salmon stocking days. Many snagged back then (legal at that time) along with some of the lake run trout that got in the way of the big weighted treble hook. Run started a bit earlier around this time of year but was done by December, with a lot of dead carcasses left in the shallows. The only spring run was suckers. 

Catch and keep sized rainbows were stocked a lot closer to the lake than they are today before the yearly steelhead program (little met on the rocky, for example) so many made it out to the lake to return - often to be snagged. 

The salmon were not good table fare by the time they hit the rivers so lost interest after a season or two - followed by a 45 year+ steelie addiction. 

These are the “good old days”. A few more salmon would be fine but wouldn’t trade for the current fishery of steelies and the occasional salmon, laker, or brown. This should be an on year for pink salmon so may see a few of those as well


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## twistedcatfish1971 (Jul 21, 2013)

...thank you for your story Steel Cranium.


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## c. j. stone (Sep 24, 2006)

I’ve had a few adventures with salmon but can’t say it was “not expected“ to encounter them?! Anyways, around 1980, I caught an 8# coho female full of eggs still tightly contained in the skein on a homemade spinner at Rocky River. The next week, I was using a 3/4” hunk of eggs on the bottom in the same large hole I’d caught the coho. I got a few taps that felt like a perch bite, then it took off! I had a giant king(chinook) hooked and had it on for abt 15 minutes. I got it near the edge of the ford on it’s side and gave my net to the guy next to me with instructions to “put the net in the water and I’d guide the fish into it“! As the fish got nearer, at our feet, the guy(shaking with excitement!), took a “swipe“ at it hitting it in the NOSE with the net. The fish took off, drag screaming, like it’d was never hooked, heading for Lake Erie! As it neared the downstream edge of the pool, the hook pulled out! I estimated it in the 25# range, maybe bigger than the hilited state record above! Other than a smaller 5#er caught while trolling a RoosterTail off Wildwood, this was my only king salmon. Many 2-3# cohos prior to, and after, the above sequence. The pic below shows the ford I caught the 8#
coho (abt where the guy downstream is), and had the big king on(abt where the nearer fisherman is and amazingly, the(numerous) guys fishing all reeled up their lines to allow for fighting both fish!):


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## MechMark (Nov 3, 2021)

The Huron river In Michigan has had some fluke Atlantic salmon the past 5 years or so. I seen reports of 3 or 4 caught last season. With MDNR stocking more Atlantics in the southern ports of lake Huron, its probably more and more likely to see strays down in Erie tribs.


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## floater99 (May 21, 2010)

I remember those stockings of salmon and catching rainbows out of the rocky we were alowed 10 bows if memory fails me corectly I seen a salmon caught through the ice many years ago


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## DeathFromAbove (Oct 21, 2008)

Many years ago , when I was still a young man , I was smallmouth fishing in the Maumee river. I was up at the dam in Grand rapids , on the Providence Park side of the river. There's a walkway up above the river there with a railing if I'm remembering correctly. Anyway, it was in the fall , and cool enough that waders on. This was back in the Chinook heyday on Lake Michigan and we'd get some strays coming up the Maumee. Grand Rapids was as far as they could get unless they jumped the dam. You could see them moving up thru the skinny water, flapping their tails as hard as they could to get thru to the next pool. They looked like pigs coming thru the rapids. So I'm fishing and bang I hit something. I snagged one of these beasts right in the middle of the back. Off he goes. And with a little bass rod all I could do was take off after him. That thing dragged me thru every hole up there. I thought for sure he was gonna drown me. About a half hour later I finally bring this thing in , a King between 30-36 inches, and I'm more relieved I'm still alive and not floating dead out towards the lake, and I hear the sound of a lot of people clapping. I look up and a bunch of people that were at the park were lined up along the rail giving me a round of applause. I don't know if it was for landing that big a## chinook or the fact that it didn't kill me doing it, but it was the only time I ever got a round of applause for landing a fish.


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## 1MoreKast (Mar 15, 2008)

This photo is from 1979 during the salmon run at the very same hole that @c. j. stone shared. I pulled this from a Facebook page.

Long before "the internet ruined my spot".


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## TRIPLE-J (Sep 18, 2006)

1MoreKast said:


> This photo is from 1979 during the salmon run at the very same hole that @c. j. stone shared. I pulled this from a Facebook page.
> 
> Long before "the internet ruined my spot".


Hmmmmmm looks like rock cliff ford back in the old days
Im probably one of them in the pic lol


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## MikeC (Jun 26, 2005)

I remember Daniels Park Dam used to be shoulder to shoulder with snaggers. Then short-sticking started and that's when I quit the river for a decade or so. It was just the most rude invasion of someone's space possible.


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## Bluefinn (Jan 26, 2007)

MikeC said:


> I remember Daniels Park Dam used to be shoulder to shoulder with snaggers. Then short-sticking started and that's when I quit the river for a decade or so. It was just the most rude invasion of someone's space possible.


Yeah, Daniels park was a zoo. Only did that once. Never cared for snagging. The one post I made was a spring run of jacks. Always around Easter


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## TRIPLE-J (Sep 18, 2006)

I got a nice 18 pound salmon from daniels park on a rooster tail the one time i went there in the old days


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## c. j. stone (Sep 24, 2006)

Yes, I was trying to remember “Rock Cliff Ford”! And the snaggers used to disgust me(even though it was perfectly legal)! I caught many salmon on spinners and roe. I’ve pulled in lots of “silver spiders” that someone had snagged bottom and broke off! The spinner bite was “reactionary”, using bait had to be just a “habit” bite since most(many) of the female fish had NO stomachs-were solid eggs from their vent to their gills! The females all dumped their eggs and soon died. Not sure if the males died after they spawned but later in the season, all the tribs were littered with stinking, rotting salmon. If you wanted to eat one, you had to go in early season hoping to get one fresh from the lake. Most looked like “zombies“ later on. There were lots of juvenile(not mature enough to spawn) cohos who were just running up the tribs looking to feast on eggs.


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## TRIPLE-J (Sep 18, 2006)

Yea i learned alot on how to spoon fish back in those days
No snagging for me, back then it was mostly spoons and spinners for me
And bottom bouncing eggs and live bait
Still love the bounce..but spoon is still my favorite
Gonna be heading to new york to do some spooning in a couple weeks
Cant wait...its been a while for me


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## twistedcatfish1971 (Jul 21, 2013)

Just found some old notes from 1996. Just a couple years after I started going out with now my wife the last 19 years back on 9/3.

Picture is a note from a day at Daniels park 1996 and she caught a large carp. I remember this day as we crossed to other side and she was on the concrete wall (side with gas pipe 🔥) this day in 1996 was 1 of my 1st times down there ever. This is my Daniels park experience with fishing down there...last couple of years I have waded around and caught some steelhead but very small...place has a ton of history for sure and that alone has alot to do with my adventures there. Reading everyone's stories is making me more appreciative and wanting some new stories of my own to share with Daniels park and fishing.

Thanks.

*** notice the FISH count at bottom of picture lol.

Don.


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## Kayak captain (Apr 1, 2020)

Caught a 2 lb rainbow in March in middle fork of little beaver creek near elkton about 6 years ago, couple of years after that I caught a 1 lb brown while fishing with friends around Easter time. 😃


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## c. j. stone (Sep 24, 2006)

I tried getting access to private property upstream of Daniels. Wasn’t successful, actually never had much luck “knocking on doors”-so always back to DP! Lots of memories there, one in particular was while in the “line-up” below the dam, after DNR started stocking true “steelhead”, every Saturday there was an Oriental gent with his son who apparently got there first thing in the morning to get their “spot” below the dam. They only fished with shiners tightlined on the bottom and I’ve actually witnessed between both, 20+ fish days(from daybreak til around noon)! They'd each string a limit culled from bigger fish, then C&R a “bunch“ more. They both had a plastic “minnow bottle” on a strap over their shoulder filled with water and shiners which, when tipped down, would dispense one minnow at a time for a fresh bait! Basic fishing but they typically netted more than anyone else!


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## MechMark (Nov 3, 2021)

Coincidentally enough, this just happened. This fish strayed very far from its home waters of lake Huron.


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