Tuesday, October 18, 2011

20 Mile

Hit 20 mile at daybreak. The water had pretty good flow and color to it. Lots of guys out considering it was a tuesday. Got a few fish very early on pink nuke eggs then missed one smaller one later in the day on the same. Also threw stoneflies and sucker spawn with little interest from the fish. When I drove back home at 12:30 there was 9 cars parked at 7 mile. I didn't even think there was that many places to fish it, maybe I will go down tomorrow and see what is going on. I can't even imagine enough fish in it for 9 cars worth of fishermen.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Lower Elk

Fished elk this morning starting at the legion parking lot and working my way upstream to the posted property. Picked up a couple fish early on small nuclear eggs. Walked back to the lot and then downstream for quite some distance. The water was extremely low and clear, ankle deep on most of the flat spots between slower holes. Pods of fish were present in a few places but with considerable distance between sightings at times especially upstream. If I were going back to elk tomorrow I think I would look further upstream or in the borough park but I think I will be staying on the mile streams in the morning tomorrow.

I also got to use my new tripod for the first time. Picked up a gorilla grip tripod from walmart. It has plastic bendable legs that seem well suited for getting wet or dirty from time to time while providing a quick rest for the varied terrain along the creeks. Gotta work on my aim a bit as you can see from the second picture though.


Tuesday, October 4, 2011

20 Mile

Fished 20 mile from daylight till about 11:30am. Saw lots of fish in the water but had more trouble than I would have expected getting them to hit. The water has a decent amount of flow and color to it now that it quit raining. I would say it is still on the high side but definitely fishable. Picked up fish on pink glo bugs and had hook ups on other pink patterns like sucker spawn and crystal meth. Saw a few fish going over the falls near the middle road access.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

7 Mile Creek

I read a post on the fisherie.com reports page from a guy saying he had a lot of luck on 7 mile creek yesterday. So in the early afternoon I went for a walk down the creek since I live about 1/4 mile away. From the road to the mouth I only saw 1 steelhead and it was located in the small hole just up from the big hole at the mouth. The fish looked like it had been through some pretty rough times and had a pink fly sticking in its tail. I guess if you walk all the way to the mouth and only spot that fish, you pretty much have to swing some bait past it just incase. Now I am not saying the guy is a liar or anything because he did state that he picked up the big brown fishing the mouth but with the waves today I didn't bother throwing anything into the churning brown water.






On a better note, my new fly line came today. The stuff that came with my rod/reel combo was terrible and wouldn't even slide freely out the tip top eye of my rod. It was too stiff to bend going out without being cast.
Now if we can just get a bit of rain for me to test it out.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

East side morning

Got to the stream around 5:45am. Apparently the west side had gotten a lot more rain than the east. Walnut's stream gauge showed almost 200 cfs which would probably have been great fishing if I had wanted to drive the 40 minutes to the west side. Only saw 4 other fishermen all day though which is more than I can say if I had gone to walnut. Got about 8 feet away from a beaver walking the stream in the dark this morning too. Thought it was a hellbender at first since there is really no sign of beavers around that area. The video quality is a bit bad, there was 30-40 fish in that hole alone and no other fisherman in sight.

Monday, September 26, 2011

At the Vise

Tied up a few supplemental flies tonight for the morning. The rain should make some cloudy water making it perfect egg pattern fishing conditions. Planning on getting to the stream well ahead of the crowds to get a premium fishing spot.



Not too bad for about an hours tying I suppose.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Little bit of fishing

Fished for a couple hours on the east side after work today. Went 0 for 3 on fish. All the fish were about 7-8 pounds and remained hooked for quite some time before giving me the slip. By the third fish, my forearm burned from the first two fights. I encountered the same problem in september last season as well, not sure if it is poor luck or out of practice but I couldn't land a fish to save my life today. All three were hooked on a pink sucker spawn, not the light pink but more of a magenta. It seems that the recent rain has spread fish over a pretty good distance on the east side. I will be sure to do more searching of the streams on my days off next week.

Friday, September 23, 2011

More rain!

Well it rained all day here in erie. The stream gauge is showing another decent climb in flow but is already falling back down again. Would love to see it hit a couple hundred to blow out the mouth of the east side streams. 20 mile showed a bit of debris had cleared when I was there yesterday but it still had a lot of build up. I haven't been to elk creek this year but would have to say it probably has the most widespread fish in it since there is no major blockages. My next day off work is Tuesday and I will definitely be hitting a stream or two.

For those that don't know the stream flow site:
http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/uv?04213152
The key is to look at the chart titled Discharge, cubic feet per second. I will not attempt to tell you what the gauge means in respect to the fishability of the other streams in Erie, but as far as walnut goes I like to fish from around 80 upto around 300. A few years ago I caught a fish in walnut when it was running around 700 and what people call "blown out" but the trip around the bend on manchester hole was rough coming back since the water had risen over a foot while I fished. Lots of people have said that 150ish and dropping is a good time to fish but I have also found the fish hitting well when the water is rising too.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Stream Conditions

Went out to walnut and 20mile yesterday afternoon when I got back to erie. Walnut had 30-40 fish swimming around in the stop sign hole and another small school swimming around at the wall. Only saw a few fish swimming the low, clear water between the wall and stop sign hole.

Walked from the parking lot to the mouth of 20mile, didn't see any fish in the stream but was told there was a lone fish that made it in. A few people were fishing from the mouth and a guy was fishing the outflow from a boat.

Went back to 20 mile today after work. Got there at around 7pm and fished till sundown, about 8 guys fishing the mouth and the water was a little bit higher than yesterday. On my way to the mouth I saw a small pod of fish at the upper end of the hole right on the edge of the woods. One fish was landed right before dark from the water flowing into the lake.

I took a little video of walnut yesterday:
Stop sign hole
http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n56/bjustin007/?action=view&current=photobucket-4325-1316740183734.mp4
Wall
http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n56/bjustin007/?action=view&current=photobucket-4145-1316740013778.mp4

Monday, September 19, 2011

Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain

Well it started raining up here in Erie a few hours ago. With the cooler temperatures and 1/2" of rain predicted for the overnight, I may have to go try for a few fish in the early morning. Only time will tell if it really is enough though. Last time they said it would rain a lot at night, we barely got enough to move the stream flow gauge.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Preseason warm up

Well I made this blog awhile back with the intention of actually posting my fishing trips. Well that didn't quite go as I had planned, the blog sat here unused for the last 6 months. Recently I got into posting informational topics on a site called Hubpages. I decided it would be useful to start using my blog to further link and integrate my Hubpages fly fishing information pages. You can find my listing of pages on fly tying tutorials and fly fishing information at my hubpages profile: http://wanderingfisher.hubpages.com/

With the upcoming steelhead season here in Erie, I plan to actually start posting my fishing adventures on the blog as well. If you have any questions concerning how the fishing has been or how to get started on steelhead fishing or fly tying, just let me know.