Another good movie site!!

Here is yet another way for you to get through your workday by daydreaming about fishing!
http://www.burlproductions.com/

Some great clips, movies and the like. There are some really cool saltwater fly fishing clips in here. It is giving me tarpon fever again. That is not good, since the last case of it just cleared up. A word of warning to my friends and fishing buddies... It is wicked contagious! Soon you will be day dreaming of 12 weights and tibor reels. All I can do is express my heartfelt apologies.

Enjoy, and may you accomplish little at work today!

Steve B

New website to check out (at least new to me)

Was taking a break from working on fall orders today, and my Orvis rep told me about this website to check out, so I did a little lookin'. If you guys are bored and looking for something to check out, give this a shot: www.fishwithra.com Some great videos!
Enjoy and tight lines!
Steve

07' Guide Season

Since it is frozen up now, I figured I would tell everyone about some more of the guide trips from the fall 2007 steelhead season. In the beginning of December, I took out Mark, who has fished with me in the past. We fished Elk Creek together last year, and it was ridiculous! We nailed a nice 13+ pounder in November of 2006, and he now loves Erie steelhead!

Typically, December is my favorite month to fish. Consistently there are more fish around in the stretches I prefer to fish, and many years, my biggest fish of the season come in the worst weather, in December. This year was hit and miss. There were plenty of fish, but we didn't see as many hogs as usual (at least not in the upper stretches where I fish). They came later for me this season, in January. The trip with Mark was a bit of everything! The first day was high water, and going to the small creeks on the east side saved the day. With high winds, heavy sleet, snow and rain mixing, and within sight of the lake, Mark swung streamers and clean the clocks of several nice sized fish! The other creeks were ripping in the morning, but cleared some during the day.


The next day we hit the bigger waters, and worked for several nice fish. The water was still that high, but green/chalk in color, so as long as you got the weight down, you got into fish. We were tossing egg patterns that day, and bright colors were the order of the day! We finished up down low again, and called it a day. As is typical in Erie, conditions were on there way to low and clear by Friday, so were fishing small nymphs and tandem rigs. The temps were getting a bit colder every day, which contributes to the creeks dropping faster. As the feeder creeks get lower because of runoff and the ground freezing, they contribute to less water going into the creeks. Also, the seeps that you see coming between the shale freeze up. This is why you get so much ice on the shale cliffs. This contributes heavily to water flow, and when it is cut off, you will see dramatic flow changes.

The last day we fished together was tough! The temp in the morning was a balmy 18 degrees, one of the coldest days in December! We had some tackle issues to deal with and more. This is a great time for one of my half a**ed theories for you. When it gets cold, you loose stretch in both your fly line and tippet and are more prone to breaking off, and you also get less effective hook sets because the transfer of power from the rod to the hook in disrupted by ice in the guides, on the tippet, etc..ie, you loose a lot more fish when there is ice around! Mark worked hard for it, and in the end we pulled a few more fish out. By the time we finished at around 1:00 or so, the temps had risen to a remarkable high of 24 degrees... It was a great 4 days, and I look forward to having Mark come back soon.

Rob and Steve

On January 17th I had a guide trip with Rob and Steve. It was cold but productive! We were sticking fish like crazy! The best of the day topped 12 pounds. Flies that produced were a bit larger than I typically fish (my most common fly size choice is 14). The best producer of the day was a size 12 bead head prince nymph. As is usually the case, we were fishing tandems for the most of the day. More fish took the top fly than I usually see. The setup we were using was egg high, nymph low. The water offered great visibility, with just a touch of color. By the end of the day, the water had cleared up just a bit more. All in all, another great day to be on the water!

The last trip before the winter blast!

I had the good luck to fish with a great couple of guys for what may be my last steelhead guide trip for a while (too cold now!!). Jerry and Dave are a couple of locals, who were more trout nuts than steelhead junkies. I think that we might have changed that! We fished together on the 18th of January, and what a day! They had tons of hook ups ( I can't ever guess how many fish we hooked up), and a great number landed. These guys had the touch. On a more painful note, the weather was a bit harsh. It was 25 degrees when we came off the water. The net was flash freezing to my fleece gloves, and the gloves themselves were frozen like ice cubes! It is easy to ignore these things when you are catching fish though! It is a good thing the season is winding down. My gear needs to dry out, another pair of waders is finished, my flies are almost gone, and I am ready to catch up with things around the shop, at home, on the computer etc. I am going to keep posting about trip I had this year, putting up some pictures and showing everyone what our area is all about. Happy fishing and tight lines!

Erie Steelhead in December

This is a video of a day out fishing and goofing off with my buddies Paul and Zack. We were fishing on Pennsylvania's Elk Creek for steelhead the week before Christmas. The water was on the clear side, but the fish were cooperative!

About us

We started this blog to give you a little more information on fishing in the Erie area for steelhead and smallmouth bass. We will update this blog with local info, fly patterns, techniques, pictures and more. We will also give fishing reports for the local steelhead and smallmouth fishing. Questions or comments can be directed to Leua@velocity.net