Elk Creek, Erie Co, 11/27/09

[ryguyfi]

Made my annual Black Friday trip up to Erie. Figured the conditions would be ok at best, but headed up anyways. We parked at Folly's and saw Elk was pretty clear. The air temp was around 40 when we got there. The sun stayed off the water most of the day, which helped with the conditions. It started to snow about about 12:30. We fished from 7:30 to 1:30.

I headed upstream a bit and saw some decent flow and a nice run. You had to search hard for the fish, but they were in there. I stayed around that spot all day and had many hookups. I was joined by 4 other guys and we landed around 10-12 throughout the day. A lot of snap offs, and many new piercings for the fish. I had some bad tippet, and realized most of the way through the day that I just bought some new stuff a few weeks ago. That did the trick and I landed one shortly. We were using 4X and 3X. Nymphs were working well for all of us, from PT, HE and Princes. Most strikes were taken on the swing. Once we realized this, we were getting consistant strikes with good presentations. It ended up being a good day out and worth the drive up. A few hours chasing some big fish, beats lines at Staples any day (yes we saw a line out the door and around the corner at STAPLES on our drive up... must have had a good deal on post it notes and paperclips...)


Ryan

(will post pics soon)

 

[Fishidiot]

Neat report Ryan. I'm still smiling about the recent Steel JAM - lookin forward to the pics.

 

[ryguyfi]

Here's my pics. The first few are of my buddies and a few of their fish. The next ones are my 3 fish. That big male was THICK!


Ryan

 

[albatross]

Nice pics Ryan. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Heritage-Angler]

There's that 8wt again. ;-)

Were you in the "honey hole" or upstream of that? There was a nice run up by that island past the bridge.

Wish we had a picture of that monster you had on there. When it rolled, it sounded like somebody threw a bowling ball in the creek from the top of the cliff.

 

[flipnfly]

we fished elk yesterday the water was up compared to 2 weeks ago and about 15 inches or so visibility it was a tought day as we parked at follys and walked down in the dark fished from the cable down to plat road we had numerous hook ups numerous break offs i landed 2 foul hooked 1 missed 2 and had 4 breakoffs total mybrother had 2 breakoffs and some really bad tippet it seemed as if the fish wanted smaller eggs 14 16 in orange yellow cherise and flame red either single pattern or sucker spawn didnt matter just had to be small ohh yeah jasons that net screwed me again yesterday lol

 

[ryguyfi]

The first guy pictured fished the tail end of that run for a while and did very well swinging nymphs.(my honey hole) I sight fished the rest of the run and up to the 98 bridge. There is a large log hung up at the bridge and there must have been 25 fish just chilling underneath it. I missed many fish. At first I had a bent hook and missed about 8 takes... I wasn't too happy when I realized it. Then I had some bad tippet and snapped many fish off. I must have lost 20 nymphs with foul hooks and snap offs but it was worth it. The fish didn't fight as well as they did a month ago, but they are still a blast!


Most of my fish this year are about the same length. My first ferrule is 27 inches and they all reach about that spot. Some are thicker than others (like the 3rd fish, compared to the 2nd). They are all good sized though. I've seen a few fish over the 30 inch mark, and have hooked a few of them, but haven't seen, or taken too many fish that were small, like 22 inches or smaller. This has been a good year so far.

(yes that 8 wt treats me well!)

 

[tig]

Nice fish,
You guys are lucky to live so close to erie, had to go deer hunting instead of fishing, Oh by the way reliable source says ammo is going up again the 1st of the year could possibly be by 50%. All you leftys out there most gun makers for some reason are shutting down production of hi end left hand guns. Not good.

 

[JackM]

I went to Erie with my buddy Sonny. We arrived on Friday, about 1 p.m.. We fished until dark on the upper section all of Elk Creek. I caught one fish and a missed another.

We fished on Saturday on the lower portion of Elk Creek and both ended up a skunked. Later in the day we went down near the mouth of Elk Creek and Sonny was able to catch two small jacks, his first and second on a fly rod.

On Sunday, we fished Walnut for about an hour and then finished at lower Elk. Though I hooked up twice, I landed no fish. Sonny caught another two before we left at about 12:30.

 

[David]

JackM wrote:
I went to Erie with my buddy Sonny. We arrived on Friday, about 1 p.m.. We fished until dark on the upper section all of Elk Creek. I caught one fish and a missed another.

We fished on Saturday on the lower portion of Elk Creek and both ended up a skunked. Later in the day we went down near the mouth of Elk Creek and Sonny was able to catch two small jacks, his first and second on a fly rod.

On Sunday, we fished Walnut for about an hour and then finished at lower Elk. Though I hooked up twice, I landed no fish. Sonny caught another two before we left at about 12:30.

Tell Sonny we said congrats! Glad to hear it. Is he switching to "all fly - all the time" now that you initiated him?

 

[JackM]

After his success on Saturday, the noodle rod never left the car. He realized what we all know: 90% of the time, bait doesn't catch any more fish than flies and 100% of the time, it is more expensive, messy, and requires constant replacement on the hook. He also realized you can be back in action after a drift more quickly than when you must reel in all your line and re-cast.