Dateline Monessen:
Just starting to have the coffee kick in and wanted to offer an early report on the Steelhead Mini-Jamboree. My first comment is that I might not be justified in adding "Mini" to the Jamboree name. Just from Saturday morning donut gathering, we counted around 14 board members, and a couple more guests of the members. I think that number grew by the time Greg (Albatross) and I headed home from Avonia Tavern last night.
The fishing stunk for me and most others on Saturday. Only 3-4 fish were legally caught and landed among everyone who accurately reported their catch for the day. There were a number of other hook ups among those attending. Perhaps photos (of which I have none) will prove me wrong.
Because Greg and I had to come home last night, the best fishing will probably be today. I wish them the best of luck. Even with the bad fishing, I had a blast meeting up with so many new board participants, but also a few old friends as well.
We met Ed (Heritage Angler), Dave (Fishidiot) and Gene (Handle escapes me) at Avonia Tavern Friday evening. After dinner and drinks for a couple hours, we all retired to out motels and met again Saturday morning at the pavillion at Folly's End Campground.
We BS'ed at the pavillion, waiting for daybreak and for an hour or two and tried to fish Elk at Folly's. The leaves were horrendous and though the river was wadable and fishable, it was barely so, and within an hour, Greg, Jason and I headed downstream to appease me and my hair-brained idea that we could "beat the flow" downstream.
To Greg's amazement and my surprise (not sure how Jason reacted as we just met and he didn't comment), the water was low and fairly clear with at least a good 24-30 inches visibility. we got 2.5 hours or so of decent fishing conditions before the flow rose and became accessively murky.
At this point, we ran into several more of our larger group and retired for lunch and plan modification. We ended up at 16 Mile and the conditions again were fishable and appeared to improve all the way until near-dark.
Additional names I recall from the day's activities include, Matt (Bruno) and his non-posting nephew Charlie, JasonS, goodfortune, Ryan (ryguyfly), tig, Jerry/Gerry (skybay), Nello, gzaccky, jrcll (not sure?), Dan (Squaretail), for dinner sat., Millertime, GoldenFly (not sure?), groove790 (not sure?).
Seems Ryan carried the ball on this and Ed as well. Good job guys! I hope the addition of one more day brings new participants and great stories and pictures to share.
