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Fishing maestro hits all the right notes
Steelhead trout are music to the ears of Girard resident John Breedlove, and the tune is ringing loud and clear here in Northeast Ohio as October advances.
Breedlove is the fishermen’s fisherman. If it has fins and gills, he will figure out how to catch it. Walleyes, bass, muskies and, when autumn is the season, Lake Erie’s burgeoning steelhead all are familiar with Breedlove’s angling prowess.
He’s getting plenty of practice in firing up the silver bullets, as steelhead are known by those who have experienced their spectacular strikes, pure power and aerial exhibitions. So when John calls to offer a seat on his boat, an angler is wise to say yes.
We greeted dawn driving north on Ohio 11 Thursday and arrived at the Conneaut harbor boat launch under a layer of lead clouds driven by the north wind that smashed waves into clouds of spray as they battered the west wall.
The mercury registered 42 degrees as we launched his Sea Nymph, and off we motored across the chop for a day of trolling the lower stretches of Conneaut Creek.
Breedlove was in his element. While you, your family and friends were perfectly happy to spend Thursday morning in snug comfort at home or at work, he was delighted to be fishing – in perfect steelhead weather.
I asked him whether he could be content fishing every day. He hesitated, but only for a second.
“Yes!”
Breedlove is the maestro of Lake Erie steelhead fishing. He is the conductor of an orchestra of carefully selected rods and reels nicely balanced for the task of hooking, fighting and securing hard-fighting fish fresh from their summer of feasting on the bounty of baitfish in the big lake.
His instruments are numerous. He plucks the day’s lures from perfectly organized boxes of wobbling, flashing spoons and wiggling stickbaits. He knows exactly where to locate any color, any style and any size.
He arrives at Erie well prepared. It is highly unlikely you’ll ask for a color he doesn’t have within arm’s length. Orange, chartreuse, chrome, gold, violet, pink, red, blue? He’s got them. Fluorescent glow? No problem.
But behind all the rods, reels, lures and electronics is an angler with instincts far from ordinary. He’s simply better than most of us when it comes to conducting his steelhead fishing adventures. He’s the maestro, Leonard Bernstein with his baton, in front of the New York Philharmonic.
Breedlove possesses an angling intellect that results in standing-ovation performances on a fishery that is world class. On days when ordinary anglers catch a half-dozen steelhead, Breedlove catches 12. Those special days when some fishers notch 15 trout, he nets 30.
He makes it look easy. But it isn’t.
Being in the boat with Breedlove provides a glimpse as the maestro fine-tunes his performance. Our day started fast, six fish in the first hour. But even as the net was still wet on the deck from the first flurry, Breedlove was at work on the next set of lures to set out when conditions changed.
And they did. Three times he orchestrated major changes that struck a chord with the fish. He played the day well, and we finished with three dozen trout caught and released.
As we reeled in for the dash to the boat ramp, a pair of bald eagles soared over our section of Conneaut Creek, lingering just long enough to tilt their wings in salute to the maestro’s performance.
Bravo!