Are they protected or still a season? Sounds like the numbers are dropping drastically.

I know for sure you can still fish them in Pa and Ohio tribs. No where near the numbers that there were when I started fishing up there in the late 90’s.

I love to fly fish steelies. But I have only fished PA tributaries a few times and that area is a long ways from me. I tend to follow the stream and lake conditions for Michigan but I had heard the boats in Lake Erie were doing ok on steelhead earlier in mid summer.

Where did you hear the population was dropping off? The Lake Erie fishery has historically been super dependent on stocking compared to the Lake Michigan fishery. Michigan has plenty of stocking too but there is a fairly good production in many of the tributaries. Perhaps OH, PA and NY have cut down on the stocking in recent years? Maybe some one from that part of the country will weigh in. All of the great lake fisheries have ups and downs of various fish game fish populations based on the prey populations out there so maybe that is part of the deal also? Normally the weather over in Erie, PA is awful similar to what we have here in Michigan and its been super hot and dry here in last couple of weeks. Typically this point in September is when the king salmon head into the streams in Michigan and by the last week of Sept or first of October the steelies begin. But the fall run into the tribs tend to be associated with rains also. I suspect its a little early in season and dry over in Lake Erie for there to be much of a run up thru "Steelhead Alley" just yet

Some internet observation. I imagine each tributary is different.

Early yet. There’s been folks fishing at the mouth of Walnut on Erie, off the wall at the launch. I caught one last Friday a couple miles out while walleye fishing. Pa Fish Commission raises steelhead, and releases them into streams in the Spring. They are about 7” long. They’ll return to that same stream in two years. They don’t die at spawning like salmon do. Their attempts at spawning in the wild isn’t successful.

The crowds on Erie tribs is crazy, and gets worse by the year.

Streams are very low now….no fish will come in until we get some serious rainfall.

Do you happen to know much about them not being successful at spawning there? The creeks around where I grew up are fairly dinky little things and the runs into them can be pretty intense. If you trout fish those locations in the spring/summer, it can be hard to keep the 7-10" steelies off the line before they head out into the big lake.

Might be something to do with the strains being stocked or the stream conditions over there? But I'm pretty sure at one time either NY or PA stocked the little Manistee strain from here in some of the locations in Lake Erie.