{Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders} Erie Steelhead trip report

I headed up to Erie this weekend to chase some steelhead with a fly rod for the first time.  I left Friday afternoon and met a friend at his place in Pittsburgh.  We originally planned on heading up that night but it started to snow so we decided to just drive to Erie in morning.  After a quick stop at Poor Richards to purchase my licence, some last minute gear and some helpful advise we headed to a spot on upper Elk Creek.  The temperature was 25 degrees with a few snow furies off and on though out the day, it was quite a change from the 60 degree weather we had when I left the DC metro area on Friday.  The water was low and crystal clear and had some ice around the bank in spots but was mostly open and fish-able with an occasional clump of slush and ice drifting by. 

We walked upstream and found a hole with about 5-6 fish holding in it.  I threw an orange crystal meth fly and hooked up with a big female on my first cast.  I fought her for a while and my buddy got her in the net.  Then he went to lift the net (which was way to small for this fish) up in celebration and she flopped out, threw the hook (which was bent back pretty good) and swam away.  I was pretty upset I didn't get a photo with her but happy I had caught my first steelhead on a fly.  We fished that hole a while longer with no hookups and continued to head upstream.  I hooked up with two more on the same fly one of which got off when trying to net and the other came off on its own.  I switched to a white crystal bugger and hooked up again, this time my friend successfully netted and maintained control of the fish for the grip and grin shot attached.  That was it for Saturday and we called it a day.

On Sunday we headed back to the same spot and walked down stream, we didn't get on the water till about 10:30 am due to a flat tire and some other issues.  Temperatures dropped over night and froze up the creeks, there was still open water to fish but only a channel running down the center for the most part and some spots were completely iced up.  It was a high of 19 degrees and conditions were tough.  We spotted a few fish but most were under the ice and almost impossible to cast to.  We decided to try another spot.  We headed to the mouth of Walnut and fished the Manchester hole.  We saw plenty of fish but didn't get any hookups or see anyone else catching any.  We didn't stay in that spot long before calling it a day due to the wind whipping in off of the lake.

I was happy with landing my first steelhead on the fly and can't wait to make my next trip back.

--
http://www.tpfr.org
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to tidal-potomac-fly-rodders+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to tidal-potomac-fly-rodders@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.