Wisconsin's Lake Superior tributary streams have long been known for excellent steelhead fishing. Unlike their Lake Michigan counterparts, these streams are essentially hatcheries -- steelhead spawn in them every year to restock the fishery naturally.

Mike Pollak caught this fresh-run steelhead on the Bois Brule River. Photo by David L. Kohne

There are two different open-season dates for steelhead and other trout on Lake Superior tributaries. On some streams, the season runs from the first Saturday in May through the last Sunday in September. On most streams, the season runs from the last Saturday in March to Nov. 15. The daily bag limit is one steelhead or rainbow trout over 26 inches, but most anglers release the legal-sized fish they catch to help maintain the fishery.

Techniques for catching these fish vary. Some anglers use spinning gear to throw spinners or drift spawn, but fly rods are better suited to fishing spawn, small wobbling plugs or flies on most of the smaller streams.

To fish spawn or plugs on a fly rod, choose a 9-foot 8- or 9-weight rod, a multiplier reel and 8- or 10-pound-test monofilament or fluorocarbon line. For spawn fishing, tie natural eggs in cherry-sized sacs using commercially available mesh material. Snell a No. 4 or 6 salmon egg hook to your line, slide the hook into the spawn, pinch split shot a foot or so above the hook, and you're ready to fish. Some anglers put a tag of orange or chartreuse yarn in the snell. Some also attach sinkers with a short dropper and a three-way swivel.

Spawn fishing with a fly rod thus rigged is a short-range proposition. Wade upstream or down and lob the spawn into deep holes and runs and let it bounce along the bottom. You can also fish this rig with only a yarn "fly" and no spawn.

To fish a wobbling plug on a fly rod, simply tie it to your line, lob it downstream and let it work in the current. Swing it back in forth in front of steelhead holding in riffles or on spawning redds to entice strikes from reluctant fish.

To fish flies, use a 9-foot 8-weight rod with a floating weight-forward line and stout tapered leader. Effective fly patterns include dark, natural-looking patterns like stoneflies, Woolly Buggers and leeches, as well as colorful attractor patterns, single eggs and yarn in chartreuse or orange.

BOIS BRULE RIVER
The most popular Lake Superior steelhead stream is the Bois Brule, which flows north through eastern Douglas County. The early season is open downstream of U.S. Highway 2. This section of river starts with deep, slow meadow stretches, and then moves to swift runs and a series of dangerous rapids and deep pools. Steelhead hold in the deep water. Some stretches are wadeable, while others are treacherous, especially at high water levels, which can occur after ice-out or a heavy rain.

One reason the Brule is so popular is there are always fish in the river when the season opens, whereas the other rivers don't see steelhead until spring.

Steelhead raised from spawn taken from Brule River fish were stocked from 1988 through 2003, first to rehabilitate dwindling natural stocks, then later to develop a technique for restoring steelhead in case any Lake Superior stream loses its fishery through a natural or manmade disaster. No stocking has been done since that time, so any fish you catch now is likely to have been naturally produced.

There are parking lots and access points all along the river off U.S. Highway 2, county highways H and FF, Highway 13 and Clevedon Road. Nearly every bend, landing, bridge and hole on the Bois Brule has a name, and old-timers can tell plenty of stories about the river and the people who have fished it. Any steelheader who has not fished the Bois Brule in spring owes it to himself to try this fabled river before he hangs up his waders.