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Taking my dad out and good friend and his dad perch fishing Friday or sat if weathers better. I’d like to troll for an hour or so before we go after the perch, and would like to pop a steelhead or two. I’m used to the offshore summer pattern, but haven’t really done the steelhead in close thing. I’ll run planer boards, should I use dodger fly for these fish or would a spoon or body bait be better. Best Colors?? Thanks!

Spoons would be your best bet. Anything orange or green.

Don't overlook a J-11 or J-13 or a red-black squiggle ThinFish. Once move out by the Port of Indiana wall or 40 to 50 straight out, a silver #3 J-Plug will take it's fair share run on riggers, divers or long lines 20 to 30 feet deep. Go with larger sized spoons. Us "older" guys probably still have what we called "big red spoons." These babies are six-inches long and gained "fame" because of the number of skammies which bit orange coho dodgers instead of the fly. Good luck!

funny mike that yu mention Jplugs...i ran a silver bullet at 33f ftdown and got a real nice release but no hook-up and a J-13 orange jointed rap behind a silver dipsy out 65 ft...got our first steelie on that yesterday...also dont forget to use rubber snubbers to take the shock out of that initial hit...steve

J 13's for the win!

Thank you for the tips. I didn’t make it out as there was a small craft advisory. And last weekend I was too busy cutting logs on the sawmill.
At any rate, I’m going out early tomorrow am, will report on how we do!

We had a fun morning outta burns ditch. went two for four on steel head and caught two drum there was probably 60 boats out there half perch fishing the other half trolling for steelhead. A bit of a maze to weave thru.
The interesting thing was both steelhead we caught had their fins clipped. I showed the DNR and he was all excited -he cut the heads off and he’s going to email me the information on the fish where they were stocked and when etc. there is a photo I attached of me with the 10 lb fish. He came on a 4 color orange Tarzan spoon 42 feet of water. The other came on a slider spoon- blue/ purple. Missed 1 on the dipsey with red thin fish and missed one on top on a blue dolphin. Seen a few other boats here and there landing steelhead and yes, more drum fish. Got pretty hot we called it at 9:30. Good times!

Thanks Steve. Headed that way tomorrow.