Steelhead 2016

[melvinp]

Wife left the fan in the window the other night,Woke up with cold feet first thought was steelhead.Bought 50 hooks the next day for tying candy.

 

[Char_Master]

I'm ready for them, but don't think I'll be fishing in the creeks much. You'll find me wading out off the creek mouths casting Cleos and big Clousers for OW Steelhead, Browns, and LAKE TROUT!

 

[edhank]

Do you have much success fishing the open water? I've often thought about doing that.

 

[stal42]

Game on

 

[PatrickC]

A tiny amount of game. Don't get too far ahead of yourself ;-) Still need A LOT of rain.

 

[724flyfishing]

Guys have been catching them in the tribs, close to the lake. Mostly jacks from what I've saw on the reports. Lake temp is down to 72. A nice stretch of colder weather and some rain is predicted this upcoming week. It could get half decent earlier than it did last year.

Did anyone see that King salmon someone caught from a PA Erie trib last week? It was floating around a couple Facebook forums. Nice sized fish. Pretty wild catch, especially this early.

 

[sandfly]

rain will put levels up for a day or 2 then right back down. no ground water to keep the flow going, have never seen it this bad before.

 

[stal42]

PatrickC wrote:
A tiny amount of game. Don't get too far ahead of yourself ;-) Still need A LOT of rain.

Agreed. But any game is enough to get me excited... I do rain dances every morning. Where's a good week of soaking rain when you need one? ;-)

 

[pcray1231]

rain will put levels up for a day or 2 then right back down. no ground water to keep the flow going, have never seen it this bad before.

Right, but they are talking PA steelhead tribs. There never really is any groundwater to speak of. A 10" deluge is gone in 3 days, and it doesn't take much more than a sprinkle to bring them to flood stage, lol. That's just the way it is all the time.

Get lake temps down, THEN get rain. So there's a few poking their heads in now, probably mostly at night or early mornings. But even if you got 10" of rain tomorrow, they wouldn't go up far, nor stay long. Water's too warm.

Get the lake temp down to 68. THEN get rain. The cool nights coming up are just what the doctor ordered. Then you'll need the rain.

 

[CRB]

Current Lake Erie Temperature off of Erie PA 75*f

 

[Mike]

It may not be just steelhead and Browns in Erie this year; you may hear of some pink salmon caught too

 

[CRB]

yes sir even years are pink. temp off erie 74*f

 

[ryguyfi]

Mike wrote:
It may not be just steelhead and Browns in Erie this year; you may hear of some pink salmon caught too

I've seen the very rare picture of a pink caught in Erie. Where do they come from? I know there's a small amount of reproduction of steelhead but I would guess the pinks are transient from somewhere else. I didn't think the other great lakes stocked pinks too.

After catching pinks in Alaska, I think they're a great fish. Aggressive strikers.

 

[Dave_W]

ryguyfi wrote:
Where do they come from? I know there's a small amount of reproduction of steelhead but I would guess the pinks are transient from somewhere else.

Pinks were introduced into the GL accidentally if my memory serves me correctly and there remains a remnant population. I don't think there was ever much effort to develop the pink fishery (perhaps Canada has fooled around with 'em?).

Kings were stocked in Erie until about 20 years ago and Cohos until about 13 years ago.

 

[geebee]

some nice Atlantics have been caught again too.

only six weeks until my trip.

am going to swing only. am going to be tying up some Jerry French style composite loop flies in blue & black.

 

[pcray1231]

Pinks were introduced into the GL accidentally if my memory serves me correctly and there remains a remnant population. I don't think there was ever much effort to develop the pink fishery (perhaps Canada has fooled around with 'em?).

That's correct. Escaped from a hatchery. Into LAKE SUPERIOR. They established breeding populations in Superior, and Huron, especially the latter.

Erie's handful of pinks are likely wilds from Lake Huron.

 

[streamerguy]

Saw 3 in person over the weekend, and a photo of another one or two between PA and Ohio.

All darkened up, humped backs, hooked jaws.....so they're in spawning mode, and will die soon. Who knows how much longer they'll be around.

Nobody seems to know why there's so many this year compared to years past. More fish straying from the upper lakes, or possibly a good year class in the Canadian tribs?? Either way it's super cool

 

[FarmerDave]

streamerguy wrote:
Saw 3 in person over the weekend, and a photo of another one or two between PA and Ohio.

All darkened up, humped backs, hooked jaws.....so they're in spawning mode, and will die soon. Who knows how much longer they'll be around.

Nobody seems to know why there's so many this year compared to years past. More fish straying from the upper lakes, or possibly a good year class in the Canadian tribs?? Either way it's super cool

Pictures?

 

[streamerguy]

Not the highest quality but the first photo shows a pink right next to a larger steelhead(you can make out the humped back). Second photo is of the same pink, I think. Might have been another in that pool. There were two others paired up at a different creek but wasn't able to get any good pics of them...

Saw photos of other fish on Facebook. Those fish were either caught or found dead, and for all I know the ones in the above photos are possibly dead now too.