Steel on the Elk

November 7, 2009

Learning to catch steelhead has been one of the most rewarding endeavors I have taken on in my lifetime. I'm always looking for an opportunity to fish with folks who have more experience than my own, so I can take my game to the next level. Greg schooled me on brookies earlier in the fall. He suggested we make a trip to Pennsylvania's Elk Creek for a day of steelhead on the fly. Of course, I jumped all over that opportunity

Elk Creek is one of the most famous Lake Erie tributaries for steelhead fishing. In it's hay-day, there was no finer eastern trib for steelhead. As the popularity of steelhead fishing in the east has increased, the pressure on the Elk has increased as well. Old timers tell stories of landing 60-70 steelhead a day. The Elk still produces great runs of steelhead, but the 70 hook-up days are few and far between now. Nonetheless, the Elk is well worth the trip, with good opportunities for large steelhead.

Steelhead are pretty fickle. They turn on and off at a moments notice. In warmer water they will pursue a meal pretty aggressively. In cooler water, you better put that fly right on their noses...because they are not moving to get it. Fishing stained water increases your chances of fooling a steelhead to hit artificial baits due to the decreased visibility. It's fun to sight fish for steelhead, but they can be very spooky in clear water.

Our day on the Elk presented us with clear water that was dropping and the flow was slowing down. That makes for a day of pretty tough conditions to entice a strike. Not only that, but there was a pretty good number of other anglers on the creek that day.

We were fishing 8 weight fly rods with woolly buggers and Clouser minnows (green & white) as our droppers with small nymphs and scuds (pink) as trailers. We started the day drifting with strike indicators. We were seeing a lot of fish early, but just could not entice a strike. Around noon we worked our way into an nice hole with fast moving water and nice rock shelf that was holding fish. The tailout of that run was holding fish as well. The area had some over hanging trees and was nicely shaded. Greg and I both thought this might be a pretty good hole.

Greg hooked-up first right along the rock shelf. His strike indicator stopped cold and Greg laid into him. The water was warm enough that these fish had some fight. That fish kept Greg running for a few minutes. Every time it looked like he was ready to land, he would shoot across that pool again. He ended up being 27 inches.

We released that fish. He had been all over that hole. Greg wanted to fish that rock self a little more. I went down to the tailout that had not been too disturbed by the previous battle. The fish Greg released went that way looking for calmer water. As I surveyed the tailout there was a pretty nice shadow of a steelhead who was moving up and down the area and obviously feeding. I was getting frustrated with my drifts with the strike indicator. I took the indicator off and decided just to drift my green and white Clousure minnow right down to this big fellow. My first swing was a little short of the fish, but he did move a little to investigate the offering. I couldn't believe I had not spooked this fish. I made another cast a swung that minnow right into his nose. BANG and it was on. He was strong and energized. He had no intentions of coming to me any time soon. He literally ran right up to the deep cut Greg was fishing and tried to dig in. When I was casting at him, I figured he was an average 25-26 inch steelie. Nothing stellar, but fun to catch. The way he was tugging, I soon realized that was not the case. He finally slowed down and we scooped him in the net. This fish was one of the best looking steelhead I had ever caught. He was emerald green with just perfect markings and a nice kype. He was a thick broad shouldered fish. He measured 29 inches and weighed 11lbs. Not a record breaker, but certainly above average.

We continued up stream for a few more hours. We found a lot of nice holes that had fish, but they were not willing to play. I'm sure all of the pressure from the numerous other anglers didn't help. We decided to head back west. There were a couple of small creeks we saw on the maps that we wanted to check out.

We found ourselves driving back a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. We found the stream we were looking for. As we drove over a small bridge, we looked down over the water...and the water was just boiling with tailing steelhead. To say the least, I was a little juiced. This creek was tiny and shallow, but just chucked full of steelhead. We dropped the strike indicators and just drifted bugger and minnow patterns right at them. I an hours time we must have hooked up 6 or 7 times. None of these fish were huge, but they made the day worthwhile. My arm was absolutely limp at the end of that hour.  

What a day. Don't overlook small feeder creeks and tribs. You may just miss a lot.