I took the week off after Thanksgiving to deer hunt down at the farm and get some time on the water. Significant rain on Tuesday messed up the hunting, but I was not going to let the flows mess up my fishing. Greg and I had been planning to hit the tribs on Thursday for several weeks. We were worried about the conditions of the tribs, but if you are willing to travel, there is usually fishable water on Steelhead Alley within a day of big rain events like we had Tuesday. It does take a lot of time and research to find and get to know the tribs of Steelhead Alley, but if you have limited days on the water, it's valuable to know you can fish on the days you have. Unfortunately, most of us have to plan our fishing days well in advance of knowing the conditions of the tribs at that time.
Thursday the tribs we were fishing were flowing high and visibility was less than 12". The weather was cold and windy and about no one was on the tribs. We traveled way east of Erie to 16 Mile and 12 Mile Creeks. On the way back we stopped and and fish Walnut Creek as well. The deep holes of these small tribs were stuffed with fish. The stain of the water was a little dark and green was the only color that was working. Seems like this is the only conditions I find much success with green, but I was glad I had some egg patterns and buggers in green that day.
Friday, the conditions were improving greatly. I had the day off and decided to hit it again. I did stop at at the Ashtabula River at daylight, but the main river was just too fast and stained for casting flies, however; the feeder creeks were nearly identical to the waters I had fished the day before. I stuck with green and had the 1st fish of the day on before 8 am. I picked up a few steelhead on the feeders and decided to move on.
I went back to a Walnut Creek in PA, and it was nearly empty of people. From scouting the stream the night before, I knew it would be perfect on Friday. Again, every deep fast run was chocked full of fish. The clarity was between 12-18". The flow was perfect. Green was not working. I switched to pink and it was like light switch went off. I had a great time and had more hook-ups than I could count.
I did get bested by a really large buck on Friday. The area I was fishing had high shale walls that drop straight to the water and they were covered with ice. It was difficult just getting into the areas I wanted to fish. I found an area with a shelf that extended out from the wall, but the water dropped off to about 4-5' immediately off of that shelf. The run off of that shelf was perfect for swinging flies. I picked up about 5 fish out of that area before Mr. Big decided to play.
He hit a small pink Crystal Meth sucker spawn. I got a glimpse of him when he rolled (half hoping he was going to be a bonus brown). He started dropping back down stream and I knew I was in trouble. I had no way to rapidly get back down stream because of the high icy shale wall. It's one thing to trek across that crap when you can go slow and steady yourself with both hands as needed...it's another when you are in a hurry with an angry steelhead on the rod in the other hand. The water was just too deep and swift to jump down in to. Anyway, I had a good hook set and I was able to encourage him to come back up my way, but he was not happy. He was jumping and thrashing his head like mad. It would have made a nice video. I knew he had check-mated me, but I kept up the fight. I was able to get him back to me a few times, but could never get the net near him. I literally had that buck on for 5-6 minutes. He finally made a last violent shake of his head and threw the fly. Even though I did not land him, he made my day. I did all I could to land him and the fact is...that ol' boy beat me. I'm OK with that.