>>It sounds interesting, catch musky, walleye, bass and steelhead. Has anybody here fished it and do I need a steelhead stamp to target musky?>>
Been a few years, but I used to fish Conneaut Creek often. Not nearly so much for steelhead as for smallmouth, though. Somebody else will have to tell you about the steelhead fishery, although as I recall, the Albion Sportsman's Club is active in raising and stocking smolt into Temple Run, A Conneaut trib near Albion. Another interesting thing about the drainage is that according to Craig Billingsley, who was AFM at the time (late 90's), Conneaut Creek produces the vast majority of wild steelhead found anywhere in open water (excluding Trout and Godfrey Runs) in the Lake Erie drainage in PA. PFBC surveys at the time found a fair number of wild steelhead way up the drainage in Crawford County, upstream from Dicksonburg. There are very few wild steelhead in any of the tribs. there, but the preponderance of them come from Conneaut. Just as a guess, Crooked Creek might turn the next most wild fish.
I know a little more about the warm/coolwater fisheries in Conneaut Creek. Basically, while there are smallmouth all the way up to at least Conneautville as well as largemouth in a branch (East Br. maybe?) that comes in near Albion, the best bass fishing is in the last several miles above the Ohio line. Part of the reason for this is that all through the Albion section, Conneaut is a very slow moving, fairly deep and trench like waterway and isn't very good smallmouth habitat. However, a couple of miles above the US 6 bridge by a place called Cherry Hill, there is a significant increase in the gradient and the bottom turns to that Lake Erie shale with a little gravel here and there. Lots of short pools and good pocket water fishing for bass here. As I recall (this is all from memory..), Mckee Road above Route 6 is about the point where the creek changes. From McKee Road to the state line is actually floatable in a canoe, if we define floatable in a fairly loose fashion. You'll do a fair share of pulling in Summer. However, it may be preferable to walking the creek. I know of no place in NW PA with more hellacious and dense brush along it than some of these sections of Conneaut Creek. It really is a bear to walk and wade here.This makes floating, for as much of a PITA as it can be, sometimes preferable.
The best muskie fishing has traditionally been in the deeper, slower section roughly bisected by the PA 215 bridge downstream from Albion. This water is also eminently floatable.
So, good bass fishing on Conneaut Creek isn't just anywhere. You have to get downstream of the gradient change.
I know nothing about Walleye in Conneaut, although I would imagine the same water that holds muskie would be the best for them. None of it ever looked like very good walleye water to me.
