FAIRPORT HARBOR − My son, Izzy, and his wife, Abbey, were visiting from California this past week to experience fall in Ohio, and picked the perfect stretch of days to view Mother Nature’s palette of colors.

And, Izzy and I also got to fish Fairport Harbor for steelhead, another species on my son’s bucket list. Unfortunately, the perfect conditions didn’t equal a steelhead for Izzy, try as we did, but I was lucky enough to catch one. After hours of chucking Little Cleo spoons, I finally hit one on the head, our only silver bullet of the day.

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I guess we should have known early on that it wasn’t going to be a good day of catching, as we were side-swiped at a stop sign before ever getting out of town, setting us back on our trip to the Grand River. At least Izzy got to catch up with a former schoolmate as the responding officer was an old friend.

With only a dented front fender and scratches on my truck bumper, we continued on to Fairport Harbor, where we put in at the Grand River Landing, a small park with space for about eight boat trailers some three miles from where the Grand dumps into Lake Erie.

The river temperature was 50 degrees when we launched, perfect for hungry steelhead. And, starting upstream, as opposed to in the harbor, has most days been the right decision as the river has been good to me in the past.

My buddies, though, will tell you that I’m too cheap to pay the $12 launch fee at the Grand River Port Authority ramp, while the Grand River Landing launch is free.

We fished hard as we made our way to the bay, but couldn’t scare up a steelhead. It wasn’t just us, though, as everyone fishing the river was having no luck as well.

I decided that the lack of rain, and low-water conditions, was limiting the number of fish in the river, and made the decision to fish the rest of the day out in the bay and even outside the breakwall as there were literally no waves on Lake Erie.

Several boats and kayaks were fishing for steelhead on this day, with most trolling spoons in hopes of hooking up.

There were dozens trying from the Fairport Harbor pier, as well as another six or seven scattered along the west lighthouse wall, most floating a jig and maggots under a bobber while also fishing a moving bait as they waited for the cork to go down.

But, it was a slow day, and as the hours ticked by, I kept praying that Izzy would get to experience the feel of fighting a steelhead. Both of us got our lures bumped throughout the day, but it seemed the fish just didn’t want to fully commit.

It’s one thing to be fishing structure and working on your skill of casting to a specific spot, but endlessly just throwing your lure out in the lake as far as it will go and reeling it in gets old after several hours.

Somewhere around 4 p.m., I finally got a bump on the line, but thought I had missed another fish when it didn’t get hooked. I stopped reeling and dropped the lure back into the strike zone, and a fatty of a steelhead came back for the green and gold Little Cleo.

The fish put on a show, stripping line and jumping twice on its way to the boat, giving both of us a look at just how big it was. My bass fishing net could barely hold it, and when we tried to keep it in the water while we worked on getting the lure out of its mouth, the steelhead gave one last attempt to escape, and flipped out of the net, only to have Izzy catch it again before it could swim away.

I held the fat male for a few photos, and then released it to fight another day.

I would have guessed that the fish was a female full of eggs with its girth, but in this case, the kype on its jaw gave it away as a male. Mature steelhead, and salmon, will experience a change in their jaws during spawning. For steelhead, the hooked jaws are to bite other males that are trying to fertilize eggs.

According to Ohio Division of Wildlife statistics, the fish I caught was probably one of the older ones in the system. My fish was just shy of 28 inches, meaning it most likely is one that has been in the lake for four years.

Nearly all of Lake Erie’s steelhead, a rainbow trout that moves between the lake and its tributaries, are stocked fish.

The steelhead are 7-9-inches long when they are put into one of six Lake Erie tributaries in March and April. After about two weeks, those fish migrate out to the lake, and typically return to that tributary two to three years later.

Steelhead in the 17-inch range have spent a year in the lake and weigh 2-3 pounds, while 23-inch fish are 4-5 pounds and have been eating smelt, gobies and shiners for two years. A 26-inch steelie averages 6-7 pounds after spending three years in the lake, and a 28-incher has been in the lake for four years and weighs 8-10 pounds.

Ohio’s record steelhead trout, caught by J.W. Brooks, of Tallmadge in 2010, was a whopping 38 inches long and weighed 21.3 pounds. It was caught in the summer 17 miles out in Lake Erie.

The Ohio Division of Wildlife collects eggs from different steelhead strains and takes a year to raise 450,000 fry at its Castalia Fish Hatchery. Those fish are stocked in the Grand (90,000), Vermilion (55,000), Rocky (90,000), Chagrin (90,000) and Ashtabula (50,000) rivers, as well as Conneaut Creek (75,000), annually.

I favor the Grand River for steelhead fishing mainly because of its protected harbor that allows me to fish the lake by boat as they stage in the bay before heading upstream. It also has plenty of shoreline opportunities for non-boaters, while the Rocky River is better for those looking to catch steelhead while wading.

Oh, and Izzy didn’t get skunked, as he caught a 15-inch largemouth bass in the river as we headed back to the launch ramp.

Outdoor correspondent Art Holden can be reached at letsplabal@yahoo.com