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.