Sunshine, Solitude, and Steelhead

Posted by rusty on October 27, 2009

     The year is winding down, the streams and rivers are full of hungry trout and a few beautiful days are still ahead of us.  This is such a great time of year for a fly fisherman.  The trout fishing is excellent and the steelhead fishing can be dynamite.

     My fishing companion and myself live for fly fishing.  Fly fishing for trout is a normal with the two us, but when the steelhead run, we seem to get a little more excited at the idea of landing monster trout in big numbers.  We have tried several different areas and went on several different journeys with mixed results.  This year we thought if we could hike farther then normal, which is usually a good jont anyway, we could find a little more solitude.  Nothing left to do now, but go fishing!

     This fall we decided on an area in New York that we had never fished before, but were willing to try something different.  Normally we go to Northwestern Pennsylvania for these steelhead, along with thousands of others.  Knowing that the river we were going to fish was a demanding hike into good fishable water, we went prepared and ready for anything. 

     Upon arrival into New York, the skies were beautiful and the breeze subtle, great fly fishing conditions, so we hoped.  Armed with nothing but our 9 foot 6 weight rods and some beef jerky and Gatorade to keep us going, we started our journey into what we soon realized was greatness.  After the 2 mile hike was over, we started fishing, and it was hard to concentrate.  The unbelievable valley was a sight that I won’t soon forget.  The 250 foot canyon walls and the color of the fall leaves made a unforgettable vista.

     The fishing stared out a little slow.  We fished some very nice water with no results and were starting to get a little worried.  I kept thinking that I drove to New York to get skunked, but was very optimistic that some steel would reach the net.  We kept fishing and moving up river until we found a great area that had several steelhead jumping the falls and shooting upstream.  This was pretty amazing to watch.  These fish are just so powerful and make it all look so easy.  The one thing that wasn’t easy was the hooking of fish, but that was gonna soon change.

     The river we fished was super cluody with about 15 inches of visibility, which meant slow presentation was gonna be a big factor in the fish finding the fly.  It was now about noon and no fish had rewarded us yet, but as soon as the clock hit 12:00, the magic started to happen.  The first fish that I hooked was and absolute monster that proceeded to break me off after a 10 minute battle.  Wow, these fish are strong.  I think these fish fought twice as hard as the steelhead in Erie, which we’ve caught several times.  Not long after I lost that first fish, Philip hooked into an acrobatic slab of steel that was just amazingly strong and colorful.  When I finally netted it for him we were so excited and ready for more.  This first fish was probably 24 inches and about 8 pounds. Simply amazing fish.

     The fishing started 2 get better and better as the day went on.  We hooked several others that out witted our fighting abilities until a huge female steelhead took my egg pattern and the fight was on.  I just couldn’t believe the power these fish had and the strong water current gave them the upper hand.  This fish was ripping line of my reel so fast, which was music to my ears.  The battle went on for what seem like forever until I finally became the victor and was rewarded a huge fish.  Philip had trouble netting the fish because it wouldn’t fit in our inadequate net.  He landed it for me with his hands and we admired this LOG for a bit before releasing her back into the depths of the river.  She was the biggest steelhead I ever landed, it was 33 inches and 16 pounds, what a fish.

     Well I was still excited about the last fish I had caught when Philip hooked another nice fish.  It’s hard to talk about all these fish in depth because they are all big fish and we hooked so many of them.  I would say on average these fish were 8 to 10 pound and we landed about 15 of them.  If I had to guess I would say you land about one out of every five you hook, at least using 6 weight outfits.  That’s one thing we need to rethink next time, heavier fishing outfit would have been nice.  Using a 6 weight did make it more interesting though.

     This was such an amazing trip, the weather was perfect, the fish were cooperative and the people were non existant.  I know that I paid for the long hikes we took, the next couple days, but it was sure worth it.  This is one of the best trips Philip and I ever had, and I think we owe it all to Sunshine, Solitude, and Steelhead.

     “And as for now and always, Tight Lines”

     Rusty

Steelheading Without The Crowd

Posted by rusty on November 20, 2007

Well the steelhead have run into the tributaries by the thousands, and the people have followed.  One thing about steelhead fishing is that you will always run into a bunch of people, but if you are willing to walk a little bit you can get away from the crowd and still manage some fish.

My friend Philip and I recently went on a trip to Erie for some steelhead action, and so did about five hundred other people.  Most people are really into mass numbers of fish when fishing on the Erie tribs, but if you like the solitude, you can find that also.  We started fishing way upstream from the lake where we seen the least amount of cars but still caught fish.  Now if we would have fished closer to the lake we could have easily caught more fish, but there’s also more people.

A good thing to remember when your on the water is to enjoy your time fishing not just the number or size of the fish you catch(even though steelhead are HUGE)!  I’m just simply saying that if your willing to walk you can avoid a lot of crowds and still be pleased.  Philip and I brought enough steelhead to the net to make us go back.

We did most of our fishing with woolly buggers and sucker spawns of multiple colors.  I think the best producer was the olive beadhead woolly bugger.  We did try single eggs also, but they didn’t seem to work quite as well.  Most people use bait of some sort which offers good numbers of fish caught, but I enjoy the fly fishing myself.

The areas that we found fish was usually in slow to medium flow runs.  Some of the big slow pools had less fish then the runs we were fishing.  Most of the time you could see the steelhead in the river, but not always, it really depended on the amount of broken water you were fishing, since the rivers were low and clear.  Several different techniques can be used to fool these fish, so I recommend you get your fly rod(or spinning rod) and head up to Erie because it’s a blast and I’m sure you will enjoy your trip.

The only stream that we fished was Elk creek, but there’s several other streams such as Walnut and the Mile streams.  All of the tribs hold fish depending on the water flow.  This is a good year for the fish.  They are in most of the streams and a good ways upstream as well.  I think we were at least 8 miles form the lake and the fish had made it that far, probably further.  Try you luck, even if you get skunked at least you got to go fishing, and that’s always a plus.

And as for now and always “tight lines”

Rusty